IDOS Side Event at World Health Summit

At this year’s World Health Summit in Berlin, 3,000 health leaders and experts from around the world came together to address the most pressing global health concerns. IDOS and Malteser International contributed with a side-event.

The BMZ-funded project ‘Fostering resilience through health and social protection’ (IDOS) organised, together with Malteser International, a side-event on 17 October 2023 entitled „One Health Governance – Putting Policy into Practice“. Influential figures like World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, and German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach stressed the central role of One Health in mitigating pandemics, especially in the context of the climate crisis and environmental degradation.

This engaging event has shed light on the obstacles to implementing the One Health approach and explored pathways to achieve cross-sectoral and interministerial collaboration. After the welcome and opening remarks of the Managing Director of the World Health Summit, Carsten Schicker, the first keynote speech by Dr Jean-Paul Uvoyo (Malteser International) provided insights into the programmes aiming to reduce the risk of human-animal contact and the impact of zoonotic diseases in the DR Congo. The second keynote speech provided by Prof. Anna-Katharina Hornidge, Director of IDOS, called for urgent global governance to achieve the vision of „healthy living on a healthy planet,“ aligning it with Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The keynote speeches provided a better understanding of the policy responses and options for One Health Governance and were the basis for a discussion between participants and the speakers. The discussions at the summit make clear that cooperation at global and local level is crucial to confront global health issues.