WOAH Calls for Action on One Health at Global Congress

The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) is pushing for a new phase of practical action on One Health. The call came at the 9th World One Health Congress in Lisbon, held from September 4 to 7, 2026.

Systems for addressing health threats often remain divided. Data, expertise, and funding are typically siloed within separate institutions. The central question is whether our ways of working are evolving fast enough to match the interconnected reality of human, animal, and environmental health.

Opening the event, WOAH Director General Dr. Emmanuelle Soubeyran stated that One Health must move beyond declarations to become a shared daily practice. She argued it is now a necessity, not an option, given converging crises like food insecurity and climate change. Effective collaboration, however, relies on strong, distinct sectors like Veterinary Services and public health systems each contributing their expertise.

"One Health will not be delivered through declarations alone," Dr. Soubeyran said. "It will be delivered in countries, laboratories, hospitals, Veterinary Services, farms and food systems, wildlife and ecosystem management, and, most importantly, in communities."

From Global Commitments to National Action

WOAH's focus is shifting global commitments to national implementation. The One Health Joint Plan of Action, launched in 2022 by the Quadripartite (FAO, UNEP, WHO, and WOAH), provides a framework. Its true test is changing how institutions work together at country level.

Key questions include assigning responsibilities, enabling ministries to share information, and ensuring plans survive leadership changes or the end of external funding. A WOAH priority session titled "Bridging Policy-to-Practice" will explore these challenges using examples from Uzbekistan, Singapore, and Malawi.

Evidence from the One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP) will highlight what makes implementation last. Necessary conditions include political leadership, clear mandates, integrated data, sustainable financing, and workforce capacity.

Dr. Chadia Wannous, Head of the One Health and Global Frameworks Department at WOAH, emphasized the real test. It is not whether a strategy exists, but whether it changes decisions, budgets, and actions on the ground. Implementation must be nationally owned, adequately financed, and built into institutions to avoid reliance on temporary projects or crisis response.

Prevention: Connecting Science, Policy and Communities

Prevention is another central theme for WOAH. A session co-organized with the PREZODE initiative will examine how to connect scientific evidence, policy, local knowledge, and lived experience for better decisions.

Experiences from Senegal and Viet Nam will help identify recurring obstacles. These include short-term financing, weak trust, limited community participation, and an "emergency bias." This bias sees cooperation fade once an immediate danger passes. The goal is to create durable interfaces for knowledge exchange.

Building the Systems Behind Collaboration

Effective collaboration requires professionals with strong technical expertise who can also communicate across institutions and understand complex systems. The FAO/WHO/WOAH Joint One Health Learning Taskforce is developing competency-based learning pathways. Its session will show how to connect existing resources, blending profession-specific knowledge with skills like systems thinking and collaboration.

Effective systems must also account for unequal risk exposure. Social roles influence who interacts with animals, handles wildlife products, and accesses services. A session on gender-major approaches will examine embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion in governance, financing, data, and programmes.

WOAH's joint work with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) on wildmeat value chains offers an example. While hunting often dominates risk assessments, examining the entire chain reveals other roles. Women's involvement in transporting and selling wildmeat involves different forms of exposure. Accounting for this strengthens prevention evidence and policy.

From Interconnected Thinking to Connected Systems

WOAH experts will also contribute to discussions on wildlife health, sustainable financing, and the H5N1 panzootic. These distinct topics lead to a common conclusion. Complex threats cannot be solved by a single sector or intervention.

Prevention depends on connecting Veterinary Services, public health, wildlife institutions, scientists, industry, and communities around shared risks. It requires surveillance to become early warning, global frameworks to be adapted locally, and commitment to continue after international attention fades.

One Health will ultimately be judged by a practical metric. Success is measured by whether countries and communities are better able to prevent threats, protect animals and people, safeguard ecosystems, and act together when risks emerge. The challenge is turning interconnected thinking into connected systems-a shared concept into lasting practice.