Speaking to the UN about One Health

This is the final story in our 20 Years, 20 Wins series, and it goes back to July 2021, when ACTAsia’s founder and CEO, Pei Su, was invited to speak at the United Nations High Level Political Forum. #20 of 20

More than a place in the UN system

Readers who have followed the series from the start will remember Win #1, when ACTAsia was granted UN ECOSOC Special Consultative Status. While Win #1 celebrated ACTAsia’s standing place in the UN system, this win is a different kind of recognition: an invitation for Pei to take the floor on ACTAsia’s behalf.  

The High Level Political Forum (HLPF) is the main UN platform on sustainable development. In 2021 it focused on a sustainable and resilient recovery from COVID-19. Pei spoke at a side event, alongside representatives of leading international NGOs. For a charity with a wide scope across Asia spanning the classroom, veterinary clinics, the fashion industry and beyond, it was an opportunity to put frontline experience in front of the UN.

Pei’s presentation

By 2021, Pei was one of the people the media and other NGOs turned to for an explanation of China’s response to the pandemic. Her expertise on China includes the exploitation of wildlife and what it means for human and animal health in pandemics such as COVID-19. As described in Win #15, ACTAsia was the first NGO to flag a loophole in China’s ban on wildlife consumption.

Her presentation was titled “A Global Comprehensive Approach to ‘One Health’ is the Pathway to Success.”One Health is an approach in which different sectors, such as public health, veterinary science and environmental protection, work together towards better health outcomes for everyone.

Pei spoke about how frontline organisations can put a One Health model into everyday practice. Also, she discussed how the pandemic demonstrated how land use and encroachment into wild ecosystems in one part of the world impacts people everywhere and that prevention must be interdisciplinary and central to national policy. 

Why this matters

The forum was about recovering from COVID-19. ACTAsia’s contribution was about preventing the next outbreak, by teaching children, vets and consumers to see people, animals and the environment as connected. That the UN asked to hear it shows how seriously Caring for Life, rooted in One Health, is now taken as a way to make the world healthier and more compassionate.

One Health in the classroom, the clinic and the industry 

ACTAsia’s 2021 Annual Review states that One Health is at the heart of its work with children, professionals and consumers. Looking back across the series, you can see it in each strand.

Children. Caring for Life teaches children that people, animals and the environment are connected. A month before the forum, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs recognised the programme as Good Practice (Win #4). Since 2012 it has reached more than 600,000 children across China (Win #3).

Professionals. Since 2009, the Vets for Change Train the Trainer programme has taught vets in China about animal sentience, animal welfare and the links between animal and human health. The vets it certifies go on to train their colleagues (Win #12).

Consumers. Fur farming puts animals, the environment and human health at risk at the same time. That is why ACTAsia took the fur issue to the UN under the Responsible Consumption goal (Win #7) and published research around One Health (Win #11). 

Each of these components are grounded in the same philosophy: lasting change comes when people understand how intimately their lives are tied to other living things, and when they carry that understanding into their schools, clinics and shopping choices.

What has happened since 2021

At the end of her talk, Pei said ACTAsia would keep delivering education and training to help the veterinary profession in Asia understand the relationship between humans and animals. She hoped that example would encourage others to take up One Health as a path to global action.

ACTAsia’s own figures show how far that has gone. When the forum write-up was published, more than 1,000 vets had been trained and 24 trainers certified. Today the total is almost 4,000 vets, with 31 certified trainers across eight provinces. Earth Day, which ACTAsia added to Caring for Life in 2021, reached an estimated 24,500 children in its first year and has now reached more than 380,000 (Win #16). More than 120 brands in China have pledged to go fur free (Win #9).

The next twenty years

In 2021, Pei told the UN that frontline organisations can put One Health into everyday practice. The twenty wins in this series are what that looks like when it is done for twenty years: in Asian classrooms, veterinary clinics, fashion houses and beyond. They were built by teachers, vets, designers and supporters, and they carry on because of them. You can read every win on the series collection page, and you can help ACTAsia reach the next generation.

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