One Health Gov

Covid-19 and its economic burden highlighted the need to rethink how societies address well-being and health in relation to environment and animals.

One Health (OH) is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. Applying OH to governance unlocks novel opportunities for addressing complex and interlinked issues more effectively, cohesively, and synergically, leading to better outcomes – win-win-win.

One Health Gov brings together 7 partners from 6 regions that are trailblazing OH in their contexts. PPs from different development levels have successfully applied OH in numerous actions and partially integrated OH into policies. The partners see that integrating OH approach into their policies is the most comprehensive and effective way to ensure economic sustainability while dealing with health-climate-nature issues, i.e. tackling multicriteria policy challenges. Thus, OH is imperative for various regional tasks, incl. healthcare, civil engineering and environmental monitoring.

In the project, partners tackle the core issues of OH approach for governance, and learn from approaches, tools, and governance solutions that regions utilise. Different contexts and possibilities enable testing different solutions. Through an intensive interregional exchange of experiences, a comprehensive set of capacities is built to improve the design and delivery of policies. This exchange includes analyses, identifying good practices, site visits, round tables, thematic workshops and information materials. Regional public authorities are supported by the lead partner, University of Helsinki – an expert in the subject.

One Health Gov aims to support OH governance and policy improvements that are cost-effective and in line with complex interconnected challenges. The key elements are 1. increasing understanding of interlinkages and OH, and 2. strengthening capacities for holistic cross-sectoral governance.