WS 10 - The SDG3 Global Action Plan for Health and Wellbeing

In 2018, the heads of three governments, Germany, Norway and Ghana, got together to launch the Global Action Plan for SDG3, which included an appeal to the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other key stakeholders to rally behind it. In Berlin, at the World Health Summit (WHS) 2018, ten United Nations' organisations active in Global Health, with WHO as the lead, took up the challenge and expressed assurance of their full commitment to the Global Action Plan for SDG3. In the same session at the WHS 2018, a framework for this Action Plan was presented by Dr. Tedros identifying accelerators, e.g. sustainable financing, primary health care, R&D, innovation and access. The Director-General of WHO stated the following: 'Global coordination is good, but we also need coordination at the country level: unity amongst partners to support countries according to their priorities'. He called upon stakeholders to stop thinking in silos, and he continued by saying; 'The letter I received asks for more than a new strategy. It demands a change in mindset.'

Along the lines of Dr. Tedros, the Lancet One Health Commission would like to continue with tangible action on the call for a change in mindset by harnessing the long-standing and continued collaboration in Global Health between Germany, Norway and Ghana. We ask for the involvement and leadership of these three countries and beyond in the current Lancet One Health Commission, which, at its core, calls for multi-disciplinarity; a radical change in mindset. We will explore at various levels from grassroot to ministerial whether One Health has the potential of becoming an accelerator to the Global Action Plan.