Strengthening southern Africa’s capacity in One Health approaches through online learning courses

10 March 2023, HARARE – The challenges posed by complexity and interconnectedness of health of humans, animals and their shared environment require a bold paradigm shift, embracing structural solutions with great emphasis on upstream prevention and preparedness. In an effort to strengthen the region’s capacity to integrate human, animal and ecosystems elements to solve One Health (OH) challenges, the FAO subregional office for Southern Africa, working with the Virtual Learning Centers project developed an online course to reinforce the OH concept, provide an overview on setting up multisectoral coordination mechanisms (MCMs) and development of country OH strategic plans.

FAO convened a global course completion webinar attended by more than 70 One Health professionals from the SADC region in order to discuss the course, provide an overview of MCMs in Africa, and introduce participants to the development of OH strategic plans.

“This online course among other One Health initiatives, demonstrates FAO’s commitment to supporting our member states together with members of the quadripartite and the other One Health stakeholders in institutionalizing and operationalizing the OH approach to help us address the many challenges,” said Patrice Talla, FAO Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa.

The quadripartite on OH consisting of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), and the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized the online course as one of the systematic approaches for collaboration and coordination across multiple sectors and build the capacity of development professionals in formulating country-specific OH strategic plans.

Online course on the human, environment, wildlife and livestock interface

The online course entitled, “Concepts of One Health online Course for Southern Africa” was administered through the FAO Virtual Learning Centre for Southern Africa (SFS-VLC), with funding support from Virtual Learning Centers Project. This four-week tutored online course consisting of four modules applied different training methodologies combining virtual learning, self-study content, problem-based learning and live interaction among experts and colleagues, facilitating networking and interaction between the course trainees and trainers.

One hundred and seventy-three (173) government and private sector field-level professionals drawn from animal health, public health and ecosystem health disciplines from 12 out of 16 SADC member states undertook the course. The training was tutored in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) through their Capacitating One Health in Eastern and Southern Africa (COHESA) project.

“This was a very successful course with motivated and enthusiastic trainees supported by highly skilled trainers. There was an innovative course delivery and learning approach; facilitating self-paced learning, discussion forums and webinars,” said Mark Obonyo, Lead Trainer who is also FAO Antimicrobial Resistance Coordinator under the OH programme.

FAO identified OH as one of its programme priority areas and supports member states to build and implement effective collaborative OH strategies. In September 2022, the FAO subregional office for southern Africa launched the OH flagship programme. This course builds on, complements and adds value to existing global and regional OH coordination initiatives aimed at strengthening capacity to address complex multidimensional health risks with more resilient health systems at all levels.

The course was closed by representatives of the quadripartite alliance from the subregion with a clarion call for continued collaboration, coordination and strengthening of the OH approach at the regional and country level.

Going forward, FAO working together with partners has a vision of establishing a Regional One Health Support Centre in Southern Africa. To this end, FAO is formulating a technical proposal that will be shared with partners for input, and later, a workshop bringing together representatives from SADC member states will be held to validate the proposal. The trainees of this course will constitute an important cohort of stakeholders for championing implementation of OH at country level.