Five people sitting on a stage at an panel discussion.

Improving health in Africa with data linked in an intelligent manner

One Health Data Alliance Africa (OHDAA)

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  • Client

    German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

  • Country
  • Political sponsors

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  • Runtime

    2022 to 2025

  • Involved

    management4health GmbH, African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Smart Africa Alliance, Quadripartite (cooperation between the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Organisation for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations)

  • Products and expertise

    Social development

Representatives of the One Digital Health community of practice stand on a stage.© GIZ

Context

The One Health approach recognises the close connection between the health of people, animals and the environment. According to this approach, those responsible from the various sectors cooperate to protect everyone’s health. In order to better recognise these relationships and implement better health protection in Africa, decision-makers must have reliable data at their disposal that reflects these complex interconnections.

Objective

Data on the health of people, animals and the environment is linked in an intelligent manner and shared across borders in Africa.

Healthcare workers stand in front of technical devices.
Dirk Ostermeier

Approach

The project is developing principles in a working group - under the leadership of the Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) - to exchange and utilise One Health information on the African continent, in the regions and in the individual countries. The working group consists of representatives from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the Regional Economic Communities in Africa (RECs), the member states of the African Union and from United Nations’ programmes and other partners.

The project also facilitates institutional and international cooperation on data standards, data integration, analysis and visualisation as well as the secure exchange of information between countries. To this end, it builds on existing data systems and develops publicly accessible software solutions for One Health cases. The project also creates the institutional and technical conditions for improved digital One Health management at continental, regional and national level. It cooperates with the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in East Africa and ministries in Malawi, Cameroon and Rwanda to achieve this.

In order to expand cross-sector and cross-border collaboration, the project supports the establishment of the One Digital Health community of practice. In the community of practice, political, scientific and economic experts can exchange ideas on One Health, digital health and data and develop standardised solutions.

Last update: March 2024

Additional information