World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) is set to hold the first-ever Global Conference on Emergency Management to address common threats, promote cross-sector collaboration, and develop a dialogue between sectors for a better world.

Faced with an ever-changing dangerous environment, experts and stakeholders from various sectors will gather in Paris on April 3-5 for the Global Conference.

The conference will bring together about 400 experts from the animals, environmental, public health, and security sectors, whose expertise is equally important in preventing and responding to crises.

Delegates from WOAH Members, emergency management experts, national law enforcement officials, relevant international and regional organizations, as well as funders and partners with an interest in dealing with crises, are among those who will attend.

Discussion topics will include, among others, research and innovation in emergency management, resource mobilization, capacity development, and risk communication. Cyberthreats and disinformation will also be handled as security risks.

The Conference will emphasize the importance of emergency management taking an all-hazards approach involving multiple sectors, strengthening multidisciplinary sectors, promoting gender equality, and showcasing the results of WOAH's project 'Building resilience against agro-crime and agro-terrorism' in collaboration with Interpol and FAO.

Over the last few decades, risks connected with emergencies have progressively caught the world off guard. Threats ranging from infectious disease epidemics to extreme events caused by climate change or natural catastrophes can have a domino impact on society, including animal and human health.

In a statement, WOAH, says, the frequency and intricacy of these events are only going to grow, posing unprecedented challenges to the interconnected ecosystems and jeopardizing global health security. 

The global conference arose from the need to investigate methods to assist communities in becoming better equipped for emergencies. It will bring together a diverse range of stakeholders to examine methods to improve the handling of crises affecting animal health and the important role of veterinary services.

The event will also provide a chance to understand the effects of risks on communities, present best practices for preparation, and explore possible approaches to the challenges ahead through a structure that combines talks and seminars. The overarching objective is to promote game-changing solutions and foster much-needed intersectoral collaborations in order to solve global health issues.

The threats under discussion include deliberate biological events such as agro-crime and agro-terrorism.

"We’re seeing more international emergencies as we struggle to deal with their drivers. This means we must prevent emergencies in their tracks and prevent them from becoming international disasters. For the Global Conference on Emergency Management, we are bringing leading global experts to Paris to work together and develop approaches on how to improve sustainable emergency management capability against multiple hazards," Keith Hamilton, Head of the Preparedness and Resilience Department at WOAH

"Outbreaks in humans that occur at the human and animal interface result in sickness and death, and cost our economies inordinate sums of money. All this can be prevented by shifting our actions from rapid detection and response to prevention at the animal source. This will allow us to stop using humans as sentinels to identify zoonotic infections in animals," David Heymann, Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)