One Health experts in Lyon chart path from commitment to coordinated action on capacity-building

In April, leaders from academia, government and international organizations gathered in Lyon, France, alongside the One Health Festival to strengthen global collaboration on One Health learning and capacity-building. The meeting produced clear calls to action: to move beyond awareness-raising to practical, scalable implementation, and to prioritize investment in people and cross-sector partnerships over the creation of new frameworks.

Participants acknowledged strong global momentum and a wealth of existing One Health initiatives. The central challenge identified, however, was turning One Health concepts into coordinated, measurable and operational action. The meeting called for the One Health approach to be embedded into systems and structures at scale, rather than built up through awareness-raising in isolation.

People, collaboration and delivery over new tools

A key message from the workshop was that success in One Health learning depends less on creating new frameworks and more on investing in what makes implementation work. Participants emphasized the need to:

• invest in people and capacity-building through training, mentorship and communities of practice;
• strengthen cross-sector collaboration and trust between human, animal and environmental health actors;
• ensure real-world delivery at the local level, bridging global frameworks with community needs; and
• shift the focus from producing new tools to using and scaling what already exists.

Better coordination and governance to scale impact

Participants identified a clear need to map and connect existing initiatives to avoid duplication, and to improve data sharing and interoperability across sectors. Building sustainable communities of practice and networks, and clarifying roles and governance structures, were highlighted as essential steps to enable collaboration at scale.

The meeting underscored that the greatest value in advancing One Health learning lies in acting as a connector and integrator, linking global policy frameworks with local implementation realities.

One Health Summit

The Advancing One Health Learning event was held alongside the One Health Festival in Lyon, France, which itself formed part of the One Health Summit. Hosted by France, the Summit brought together heads of state and government, leaders of international and regional organizations, parliamentarians, scientists, the private sector, civil society, local authorities and youth representatives to accelerate implementation of the One Health approach.

One Health recognizes that the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment is deeply interconnected. Strengthening capacity to address these linkages is essential to tackling complex global health challenges, from pandemic preparedness to antimicrobial resistance and climate-related health risks.

Additional resources

• Explore the videos of the event here (Passcode: WHO@Lyon7).
• Discover the visual summaries of the sessions:
  • Advancing One Health Learning
  • How can we achieve it?
  • What are we doing?
  • What do we want to do?