COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE IN ECOHEALTH - SOUTH AND SOUTH EAST ASIA

http://www.copeh-ssea.org/

EcoHealth is an emerging field of study and practice focused on how human and animal health and wellbeing are intimately linked to the health and wellbeing of the earth's ecosystems.

VWB/VSF-Canada has based many of its activities on what has been called an "ecosystem approach to health " - fostering the sustainable management of human-animal-environmental relations. The shorthand term for this integrative and innovative approach is "EcoHealth".  Like the International Development Research Centre, which has championed this approach internationally, VWB/VSF recognizes that there is "an urgent need to understand the linkages between health, environment, and poverty, and the nature of the trade-offs in choices made by the poor." There is also a "need to identify interventions that are multi-sectoral, involving not just the health and/or environmental sectors. Health is both an outcome and a resource for sustainable development, and understanding its role calls for integrated thinking, innovative approaches, inclusive processes, partnerships, and empowered communities."

Like IDRC, from whom we have drawn much inspiration and advice, VWB/VSF "focuses on the interacting social, political, economic and ecological contexts that influence health. It is engaged with issues of health rather than of disease, with prevention rather than just cure. It moves beyond health to concerns of sustainable development and continued well-being."
 

CoPEH-SSEA  In South and Southeast Asia, we are developing a Community of Practice for Ecosystem Approaches to Health (CoPEH-SSEA), with links to a variety of other such initiatives such as the Canadian CoPEH (http://www.copeh-canada.org/index_en.php), of which VWB/VSF president David Waltner-Toews is a founding member.

The CoPEH-SSEA was launched in April 2008 at the request of the participants at the international EcoHealth and Sustainable Agricultural Development workshop, in Bangkok, Thailand hosted by VWB/VSF-Canada.  The forum is linking partners from a wide range of disciplines, and is enabling members to share their knowledge and experiences as they develop EcoHealth pilot projects. With members from government, non-governmental organizations, and from seven universities in the region as well as international organizations (UNICEF, FAO, and the OIE), the CoPEH-SSEA network is focused on developing projects that demonstrate the effectiveness of the EcoHealth approach in overcoming animal and public health issues related to the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases (EIDs) as well as a range of other health threats impacting communities both within the region, and globally.


Links:

Latin America and the Caribbean

http://www.insp.mx/copeh-tlac/eng/inf/index.php

West and Central Africa

Focus: Educational Development

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-101454-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

http://www.copes-aoc.org/

Middle East and North Africa

Focus: Water Resources Management

http://www.copeh-mena.org/

South and South East Asia

Focus: Emerging Infectious Diseases

http://www.copeh-ssea.org/