The Kenyan representatives of the One Health ‘Quadripartite’ – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) jointly organized an Environmental actors One Health workshop with COHESA-Kenya as represented by the University of Nairobi. High-level representatives of state and non-state agencies in the environment health sector were present for the discussions.
The workshop, held from October 28th to 30th at the Gillian Hotel in Machakos, Kenya, aimed to enhance the awareness of stakeholders in the environmental sector about the importance of integrating environmental concerns into the national One Health objectives and outcomes. It also provided an opportunity to assess the national environmental governance and institutional framework, identifying key areas for a coordinated approach to addressing the environmental aspects of One Health, including their interactions with human and animal/crop health sectors. The workshop sought to pinpoint areas that require further alignment, establish a coordination framework, and develop key messages, strategies, and a roadmap to support a unified approach among environmental sector actors in advancing the environmental components of One Health in Kenya.
Seizing this opportunity, the University of Nairobi and COHESA-Kenya team shared and validated findings from a net mapping process that sought to identify the gaps and areas of intervention for increased involvement of environment health stakeholders in Kenya’s One Health landscape. During the discussions, several suggestions were put forward, including the integration of environmental experts into One Health forums and platforms, the incorporation of environmental data into One Health decision-making, the promotion of a deeper understanding of environmental issues and ecosystem health within the One Health community, and the strengthening of the environmental sector’s capacity and its institutions to ensure they have an equal voice in One Health discussions and decision-making. It was however clear that at the highest level of governance, legal documents and policies that guide the integration of environment actors in One Health are in existence. The only challenge was in adopting them to local contexts and actual implementation of an integrated approach to health issues.
A deliberate output of the workshop was a structured technical working group (TWG) of environmental sector actors that can be included in existing One Health structure and their terms of reference. This TWG is subject to a further validation and presentation to the national and subnational OH platforms which mainly contain the actors from animal and human health sectors.
By Christian Odinga, ISAAA AfriCenter