Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated a plethora of fissures within society, and between society and nature. In its wake, there is a consensual recognition that the world is living through an era of severe multiple crises. In this complex context, the One Health approach has been adopted as the conceptual and policy framework for meeting the lofty aim of strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, with the intent to avoid the sort of calamitous dynamic of COVID-19 in the future. But there are legitimate concerns on the way and manner that the approach is currently being unfurled, as being undesirably more anthropogenic than the biocentric logic which is at the core of its conceptualization. Through an overview of the new sciences emerged in the wake of increasing evidence that human activities are driving the world to the tipping edge of catastrophe, this article advocates for Structural One Health as the strategy that could provide the alternative vision needed, coupled with the call for financial justice and democratic mobilization.
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Notes
These are the World Health Organization (WHO), World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), Food and Agricultural Association (FAO) and the United National Emergency Programme (UNEP).
It would have been comical were it not tragic for example, that Sultan Al Jaber who is CEO of the UAE’s oil company is serving as president of the COP 28!
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Aye, B. One Health in a World of Multiple Crises: A Necessary but Insufficient Approach. Development 66, 185–190 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-023-00390-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41301-023-00390-3