Project dates: 2011-2015

It will organise regional and national meetings, while utilisation of ICT (social networks, website, etc.) will cover and spread network’s activities and news.

Context

Our objective is to improve animal health and food safety of ASEAN communities through better collaboration and communication schemes between public and animal health sectors and public and private actors from rural development and environment sector at local, national and regional level within the framework of health surveillance systems. Our mitigation approach will be based on the application of Companion Modelling, a participatory approach that has already been valorised in Southeast Asia to deal with risk management’s complexity and to facilitate communication among sectors. 

Objectives

The reach of ASEAN 2015 objectives will increase the mobility of people, goods and livestock within Southeast Asia community, and therefore increase the risks of emergence, encroachment, spread and endemicity of infectious animal and zoonotic diseases. Preventing and controlling those threats are keys in the achievement of food security and the maintenance of farmers’ livelihood. This implies strong (efficient and lasting) animal health surveillance systems to collect and analyse data in order to spread relevant information at national and regional level to decision makers.

Spreading health information relies on social networks involving different types of actors with various technical and economic constraints and social and political issues. In order to take into account these factors and to better understand the incentives of the different stakeholders groups, we will implement participatory approaches based on companion modelling to build up a dialogue between heterogeneous stakeholders. In “non-crisis times”, people from different sectors (private/public, veterinary/public health, or environment/agriculture) encounter difficulties to achieve common strategies. Based on our previous experience, we propose to promote professionals from different sectors to express their points of view and conflicting interests related to health risks management, in order to set up a constructive dialogue. This iterative and continuous process of institutional and technical exchange will contribute in a sustainable way to improve animal health surveillance systems and thus food security.

This work will be initiated by researchers and animal/human health actors from the Network and will benefit to private and public actors outside the Network. Over a period of 18 months, 2 regional and 2 national meetings along with 1 regional training session will be organised for knowledge sharing and cross-sectoral dialogue, among health surveillance’s stakeholders. We will implement companion modelling approach with the support of international experts from the National Veterinary School of Toulouse, France; the University of Liège, Belgium and Sussex University, UK, to reach a collective agreement to improve surveillance and control strategies to better inform decision-making. This work will increase visibility of the private sector key role in surveillance and control of animal and zoonotic diseases and strengthen the public/private partnership and communication.

We aim at building a consensual generic methodology for the evaluation and optimisation of animal diseases surveillance systems at a regional level. By maintaining quality and availability of animal products trade, we will promote food security and contribute to improve the livelihoods of the poorest communities in the ASEAN region.

Our network will effectively reinforce capacities between public/private sectors and animal/human health actors from SEA countries to design shared solutions for the improvement of animal diseases surveillance systems.

Collaborators

• Kasetsart University (KU), Thailand
• Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand
• Department of Animal Health (DAH), Vietnam
• National Institute Of Hygiene And Epidemiology (NIHE), Vietnam
• Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, Cambodia
• National Veterinary Research Institute (NaVRI), Cambodia

This regional and inter-governmental dimension will contribute to manage health risk surveillance in the framework of ASEAN 2015 objectives.

Kick-off Meeting: Companion Modeling Pilot Network of Excellence in food security research