Global health challenges – human, animal, environmental – impact the lives of us all and call for coordinated, interconnected and cohesive responses from governments, businesses and citizens. While such systemwide and holistic analysis, and action is at the core of the One Health approach, these systemic
responses are often not obvious nor straightforward as they require diverse people and institutions to come together, to recognize the need to join forces and then to work effectively across sectors and institutions. To address these challenges, the COHESA project, which is coordinated by the International Livestock Research
Institute (ILRI) with the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications (ISAAA) AfriCenter, focuses on supporting the national institutionalization and operationalization of One Health.

This brief shares highlights on how Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia have devised and adopted more unified, multidisciplinary One Health approaches, and the lessons learned to guide future One Health implementation in these countries.