One Health Joint Plan of Action

The world faces urgent challenges of infectious disease pandemics, as well as water, air and soil pollution. Climate change is compromising feed and food security and increasing the spread of infectious diseases, including drug-resistant infections and vector-borne diseases carried by mosquitoes and ticks. By linking humans, animals and the environment, One Health can help to address the full spectrum of disease control – from prevention to detection, preparedness, response and management – and contribute to global health security. Having the One Health approach in place makes it easier for people to better understand the co-benefits, risks, trade-offs and opportunities to advance equitable and holistic solutions. The approach should be applied at the community, subnational, national, regional and global levels, and relies on shared and effective governance, communication, collaboration and coordination.

The One Health Joint Plan of Action (OH JPA) was developed to reflect the increased collaboration on One Health between FAO, UNEP, WHO and WOAH. Following the 27th Tripartite Annual Executive Meeting (in March 2021), the Tripartite and UNEP agreed to jointly develop the OH JPA to guide their collaborative activities on One health related issues.

In May 2021, the WHA74.7 resolution called “to build on and strengthen the existing cooperation among WHO, FAO, OIE and UNEP to develop options, for consideration by their respective governing bodies, including establishing a common strategy on One Health, including a joint workplan on One Health to improve prevention, monitoring, detection, control and containment of zoonotic disease outbreaks”. The One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022-2026) (OH JPA) should be seen as one of the options developed as part of the strengthening of the collaboration between FAO, UNEP, WHO and WOAH. UNEP was formally included in the collaboration in March 2022.

The OH JPA is intended to guide the four organizations to work jointly on One Health with the aim of supporting their Members/Member states/State Parties to build One Health capacities and is not a binding policy document. It provides a framework for action and proposes a set of activities that the four Secretariats can offer together to enable countries to advance and sustainably scale up One Health in managing health threats to humans, animals, plants, and the environment.

It includes six interdependent action tracks with a multidisciplinary team behind them, who are working across fields, organizations and sectors to innovate and improve systems, tools and capacity with these goals:

1. Enhance One Health capacities to strengthen health systems
2. Reduce risks from emerging and re-emerging zoonotic epidemics and pandemics
3. Control and eliminate endemic zoonotic, neglected tropical and vector-borne diseases
4. Strengthen the assessment, management and communication of food safety risks
5. Curb the silent pandemic of antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
6. Integrate the environment into One Health

The OH JPA is not a binding policy document and it is intended to guide the One Health work of the four organizations (FAO, UNEP, WHO and WOAH). It has been developed through a participatory process. The OH JPA was drafted by the Tripartite and UNEP drafting team, then the document was distributed within the four organizations for respective internal reviews. Consultations with Member States and stakeholders of the four organizations were also organized to collect feedback and inputs. Their inputs are reflected in the final publication. The One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP) also supported the development, particularly the Theory of Change of the plan.

A taskforce has been established to move forward the implementation of the OH JPA, including the development of a set of tools, the resource mobilization plan, and the implementation framework. A series of open consultations have been conducted by the Quadripartite at global, regional and national level.