Today, on World Health Day, I echo and advance the World Health Organization’s global call, grounded in urgency and collective responsibility, Together for Health, Stand with Science.

This year’s World Health Day is marked by a convergence of scientific leadership and multilateral coordination through the One Health Summit in Lyon under the French G7 Presidency and the inaugural Global Forum of WHO Collaborating Centres, convening nearly eight hundred scientific institutions across more than eighty countries. The Wellbeing Foundation Africa, as a member of the WHO Civil Society Commission and an accredited non-state actor with WHO Africa, through its Wellbeing Africa Institute of Research and Development (WAIRD), is engaging virtually to contribute frontline implementation insight, reflecting the scale and coherence required to translate evidence into action across systems and borders.

At the centre of this global moment is the #OneHealth approach, recognising that human health is inseparable from animal, ecosystem, and environmental health, evidenced by the fact that over sixty per cent of emerging infectious diseases originate in animals and that most newly identified pathogens in recent decades have been traced to zoonotic sources. These dynamics are intensified by climate pressures, environmental degradation, and shifting human settlement patterns, reinforcing the need for integrated, science led responses across sectors.

Within this framework, the Wellbeing Foundation Africa advances practical application across maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health systems, where early detection, safe care environments, and community level prevention intersect with broader climate and public health determinants.

To stand with science in this context is to uphold the institutions, partnerships, and financing structures that translate evidence into equitable outcomes, requiring sustained investment, protection of multilateral cooperation, and renewed trust in public health guidance, alongside recognition of the role of environmental conditions and food systems in shaping health outcomes.

 

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