Botswana to develop holistic environment, health curriculum
Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Capacitating One Health in Eastern and Southern Africa ( COHESA) held a three- day workshop this week in Gaborone.
Several delegates came together to map out the One Health Competencies and curriculum development in Southern Africa.
The aim of the COHESA One Health project is to generate an inclusive research and innovation ecosystem that facilitates uptake, adaptation and adoption of solutions to issues that can be addressed by a One Health approach.
The One Health concept recognises the interconnection of people, animals, plants, and their shared environment. COHESA is mandated with insuring better health in aspects of human existence, such as environment, animal health, food safety and the overall ecosystem.
A statement from COHESA notes that in a globalised world, all nations and societies need to better manage One Health in line with this approach. Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources hosted the collaborative workshop with COHESA to build the capacity of higher educational institutions to educate, train and empower the attendants to tackle One Health issues.
The workshop comprised of delegates from the World Bank, International Livestock Research Institute, Inter University Council For East Africa, University of Pretoria, Southern African Region
University Association and SADC.
The workshop was officially opened by Proffesor Ketlhalogile Mosepele who in his opening speech stated that one of BUAN’s thematic areas of the research intensification pillar is to have increased collaboration with external partners. He believes that COHESA project is helping BUAN to achieve that area.
“This project has been adopted by the right institution as the world is currently facing unprecedented, interconnected threats to health of people, animals and the environment: addressing these threats requires cross sectoral systems wide approaches.
Essentially, One Health unpacks the Agricultural and Natural Resources sphere across its value chain and therefore presents a compelling argument for multidisciplinary in research,” he said.
Mosepele also said that it is inevitable that a university like BUAN should be in the forefront of this initiative because all aspects of human existence are essentially science based.
Professor Flora Pule- Meulenburg said that the main objective of COHESA is to encourage collaboratives amongst different sectors of health in Southern Africa and East Africa, adding that in the eyes of COHESA, BUAN is a multiplier as it has an education and research mandate that can build capacity of different service providers.
She gave an example of One Health as an instance of food safety challenges due to overuse of pesticides to pest and disease outbreaks in plants all caused by climate change.