By JULIA DAY, STEPS Centre member
As participants gather for the major international meeting in Winnipeg Canada this week to discuss ways forward on the One World, One Health initiative, a series of new papers have been published, documenting country-level experiences of HPAI responses in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia (papers and presentations. Photo credit: Avian flu blood sample / UNSIC.
The papers were discussed at an expert meeting last month – The political economy of the response to highly pathogenic avian influenza: lessons for the One World, One Health initiative – co-hosted by the STEPS Centre and Chatham House and funded by DFID/the World Ban as part of a wider project on avian flu.
A number of key themes were highlighted, including the importance of a pro-poor and livelihoods approach; the opportunities for learning from local innovation; the challenges of building resilience in response systems; and the broader geopolitics of the response – and the importance of taking into account both local and international political and bureaucratic realities in the implementation of a One World, One Health approach.
A meeting report summary was prepared which has fed into the major international meeting in Winnipeg in March 2009 and a subsequent high level discussion on governance arrangements to be convened by Chatham House, London in collaboration with the STEPS Centre.