THIRD INTERMINISTERIAL CONFERENCE ON HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT IN AFRICA (IMCHE3)
Opening remarks of Prime Minister of Gabon
In his address, His Excellency Emmanuel Issoze Ngondet, Prime Minister of Gabon, welcomed the progress made by the countries that signed the Libreville Declaration on Health and the Environment. However, he felt that the time had come to "go further, particularly in terms of mobilizing material and financial resources for the implementation of national plans, but also in terms of clarifying and sharing responsibilities".
The Prime Minister invited countries to focus on "the subdivision of urban centres, the production and validation of master urban plans and their implementation. This makes it possible to efficiently reduce the degradation of ecosystems linked to uncontrolled land use. He went on to invite states to "put in place policies to reduce congestion in urban areas which are under pressure from immigration and rural exodus and implementation of mandatory reforestation policies after deforestation.”
Opening remarks of the WHO Regional Director for Africa
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Regional Director for Africa spoke about how Africa’s significant disease burden is attributable to environmental determinants which include vector-borne diseases, diarrhoea, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. She pointed out that outbreaks of arboviruses are on the rise at unprecedented rates and potentially exacerbated by inadequate waste collection and management. “The global economic consequences of environmental health risks are considerable. For example, economic losses due to lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation in Africa represent about 5% of GDP”, she stated.
The effective implementation of the 2008 Libreville Declaration has yielded remarkable results at policy, programmatic and institutional levels. Dr Moeti thanked the Global Environment Facility and other donors for their financial assistance in fast-tracking the implementation of these programmes. While there has been progress in the creation of global financial mechanisms to address specific environmental challenges, much more needs to be done. “A penny saved today in avoiding prevention, is a pound spent tomorrow on rising hospital bills, lost work days, and cleanup costs”, she said.
In her concluding remarks, Dr Moeti expressed her hope that the Ministers adopt a clear strategic action plan for scaling up investment in joint health and environment initiatives in Africa. She reiterated that WHO is fully committed to providing the best possible support to countries and move from Declaration to Action!
Opening remarks of the UNEP Regional Director
The Regional Director of UN Environment highlighted the new paradigms that determine the relationship between health and the environment in a dynamic landscape "constantly changing with new opportunities arising from rapidly evolving technologies, increased human mobility and new scientific knowledge. »
According to Ms. Koudenoukpo, "thanks to development, enormous progress has been made in human health in recent decades. But this should not lead us to complacency. Leaders in the health and environment sector are increasingly aware that these gains could be eroded by environmental factors. »
It was therefore only natural that the Regional Director of UN Environment ended her address by launching this appeal: "Let us bring together decision-makers in health, environment and development as well as finance around the same table. It is time for us to reach a wider audience, and to extend and amplify the strategic alliance for health and the environment to better demonstrate the relevance of joint actions and practices in health and the environment to the achievement of our common objectives. »
Representatives from African cities met today (9 November) to boost actions to tackle environment issues affecting human health, such as air pollution, water quality and sanitation, and to build healthy, wealthy, and sustainable future urban centres.
Around 500 million people live in Africa’s cities, with numbers rising rapidly each year. The continent’s rapid and unplanned urbanization brings huge opportunities, but poses significant risks to health through pollution, over-crowding and unplanned growth that does not consider the environment.
“Africa’s cities are booming, and how we manage that economic and population growth today will have a huge impact on the health and economic viability of entire countries far into the future,” said Dr Suvajee Good, Programme Manager for health promotion and determinants of health, World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Office for Africa.
Worldwide, over 80% of people living in urban areas are exposed to polluted air, which causes seven million deaths each year and costs billions in healthcare and lost productivity. Nearly one million people in Africa die from air pollution every year.
Data shows that 9 out of 10 people breathe air containing high levels of pollutants, resulting in an estimated 7 million deaths worldwide each year.
IMCHE3 is proud to host the interactive “BreatheLife” exhibit on urban air quality and health, which has been traveling around the world over the past two years. The exhibit includes a 3D street painting from the famous street artist Kurt Wenner, illustrating scenes from clean and polluted cities, as well as a virtual bike tour of cities around the world.
The traveling exhibit is part of the BreatheLife campaign, an ambitious campaign by the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Environment and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) to protect our health and climate by improving air quality. It aims to dramatically reduce the 7 million deaths annually from air pollution by 2030 and slow the pace of climate change.
The campaign targets cities, regional and national governments, the health sector and citizens, including parents who are concerned about the health of their children, students, and social media users. Within the health sector, specialists of cardiovascular, respiratory diseases and cancer are targeted. Through its network it showcases and promotes solutions for transport, waste management, household air pollution, energy supply, industry, and food and agricultural production that will help tackle pollution and climate change.
The key role played by environmental factors in Africa’s high rates of tuberculosis (TB) will be the focus of a side event taking place during the Third Interministerial Conference on Health and the Environment in Africa in Libreville, Gabon today
TB is the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent after HIV/AIDS. Because the heaviest burden falls on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, the disease aggravates existing inequalities. A quarter of all cases occur in Africa, although the continent contains just 15% of the global population, while 42% of the estimated TB deaths globally are registered in the region.
“TB spreads easily in crowded and poorly ventilated households, as is often the case in rapidly growing cities in Africa where slums are commonplace,” said Andre Ndongosieme, Medical Officer, WHO Africa or Farai Mavhunga, Medical Officer, WHO Africa “Without adequate measures to prevent the spread of infection, health care facilities, workplaces, public transport and prisons can also facilitate the transmission of TB.”
Gabriel Mabikina has lived most of his 80 years of life in the bustling port city of Pointe-Noire in the Republic of Congo.
The retired businessman is a community leader and he has noticed many changes in his city.
“In the neighbourhoods there are a lot of mosquitoes,” Mr Mabikina recently told health workers. “A lot, lot, lot of mosquitoes.”
Following the declaration of a Yellow Fever outbreak in the Republic of Congo in August 2018, Mr Mabikina was among the more than 1 million people who turned up to be immunized during a vaccination campaign against the disease in September.
Mr Mabikina’s observations about the profusion of mosquitoes are supported by surveys conducted in the affected area which reveal high densities of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that spreads Yellow Fever.
Across Africa, diseases transmitted by bloodsucking insects – including ticks, fleas and sand-flies as well as mosquitoes – are emerging and re-emerging, and epidemics are reported more frequently than before.
Evidence is mounting that climate change – in addition to population movements and deficient urban planning – is contributing to these public health crises which place huge socioeconomic burdens on vulnerable populations in low-capacity countries. These burdens may potentially jeopardize the ability of many countries to attain the sustainable development goals by 2030.
Hospital in Gabon is an interesting model for Sierra Leone
Mohammed Foday Yumkella, Minister of Political and Public Affairs of Sierra Leone says Gabon’s Hospital of the Jeanne Ebori Foundation in Libreville is taking an innovative approach to tackling Africa’s high maternal and child mortality.
Côte d’Ivoire and the need to jointly preserve our environment
The Director of Public Health and Health-Environment of Côte d’Ivoire, Dr Gagne Eugénie, highlighting the need of preserving the environment for better health outcomes.
National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Expo
The Third Interministerial Conference on Health and Environment hosted a regional NAP Expo, which aims to create an opportunity to discuss issues related to the formulation and implementation of NAPs, and to catalyze actions and support for the NAP process.
The objective of the NAP process, which was established under the Cancun Adaptation Framework (CAF), is to reduce vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, by building adaptive capacity and resilience. It also seeks to facilitate the integration of climate change adaptation, in a coherent manner, into relevant new and existing policies, programmes and activities, in particular development planning processes and strategies, within all relevant sectors and at different levels.
The NAP Expo in Libreville focused on how NAPs can be integrated into the Sustainable Development Goals, with a particular emphasis on the health sector, and what can be done by countries to develop climate resilient health systems. These plans are necessary as climate change affects the health and wellbeing of populations resulting from drought, flooding and other extreme conditions. In order to facilitate this integrated approach to NAPs, WHO together with stakeholders has developed supplementary guidelines for the development of NAPs, which were explained at the NAP Expo. In general, discussions around integration revealed a lack of integration between sectors. A coordinating committee will help to overcome this challenge. As mentioned by Julie Amoroso-Garbin of the UNFCCC, “the national committees established through the Libreville Declaration can serve to coordinate the mainstreaming process of health dimensions of NAPs. Country coordinating committees can also help with the dealing with the impacts of climate change, which impact us all.”
Discussions also looked more generally at progress related to NAPs. Countries reported that although most of them had started the process of formulating NAPs, they are struggling to take them further. One of the reasons for this is limited funding.
The African continent is disproportionately affected by the dumping of harmful chemical materials such as e-waste, pesticides and other hazardous waste, which threaten the environment and the health of African communities.
In 1989, the Basel Convention was established to prevent the shipment and disposal of hazardous waste from industrial to developing countries. To complement the Basel Convention, African Nations established the Bamako Convention on the Ban of the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes, which came into force in 1998. It is aimed at protecting the health of populations and the environment of African countries through a ban on the import of all hazardous and radioactive wastes. It also prohibits the dumping of hazardous wastes in oceans and inland waters and their incineration on African soil, and promotes the minimization and control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes within the African continent. The Convention also aims to improve and ensure ecologically rational management and handling of hazardous waste within Africa, as well as the cooperation between African nations.
The WHO Secretariat of IMCHE3 will publish a daily Electronic Journal (eJournal) during the conference. The easy-to-use eJournal is designed to improve interactions with our readers and to reach a wider readership. It offers features such as built-in videos, photo galleries and audio recordings. The eJournal will be distributed in the three WHO working languages namely English, French and Portuguese. The eJournal can be accessed by email on all computers, mobile phones, iPads and all types of mobile devices at any time during the Health and Environment Conference. Inquiries about the e-journal including suggestions for improvement should be sent to Phyllis Jiri on jirip@who.int
