Last week, FAO and the General Directorate of Animal Health and Production (GDAHP) organized an inception workshop of the second USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) project on ASF. Also, they took the opportunity to discuss other ASF activities funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Republic of Korea (ROK). The workshop gathered 48 participants from GDAHP and key stakeholders to discuss the current ASF situation, including gaps, challenges and solutions in addressing ASF in the country to find complementary points between FAO, the Cambodian government and partners.

Through Mongolian’s Livestock Commercialization Project (LCP), funded by the World Bank, FAO introduced the veterinary development management system – a new system to integrate the profile database of all veterinarians, who will have access to different training tracks for their professional development. The system allows monitoring of the license status of each veterinarian and the progress made in their professional development through a credit points system. So far, around 2 170 veterinarians have been registered to the system; a series of training continues for local veterinary departments on registering and operating on the system.

Last week, FAO showcased its project achievements under USAID funding to the United States of America Ambassador to Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Peter Haymond, in the annual USAID partners meeting. FAO ECTAD Chief Technical Advisor Leo Loth thanked USAID for their continuous support to improve animal health in the country, especially in avian influenza and African swine fever prevention and control.

FAO met with the USAID Regional Development Mission for Asia (RDMA) on 16 February 2023 for their fourth deep-dive meeting. The deep-dive sessions was aimed at detailed evaluation of thematic topics. The fourth deep-dive session focused on innovations with FAO sharing its current and planned activities. FAO also presented ideas for future innovative activites and vision in harnessing tools and initiatives. FAO and USAID RDMA also discussed an approach to integrating innovation in in FAO-USAID programmes. 

A regular coordination meeting for the Regional Quadripartite One Health Coordinating Group was organized on 3 February 2023. WOAH Regional Representation for Asia and the Pacific handed over the Secretariat role to WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia (SEARO). The regional Quadripartite group will meet with key partners from 1 to 2 March 2023 to facilitate the regional implementation of One Health initiatives.

The regional Tripartite – FAO, WHO and WOAH Regional Offices – organized a webinar on the prevention and control of NPZ in Asia and the Pacific on 16 February 2023. The webinar provided orientation on the series of new guidance and tools from the Tripartite targeting relevant sectors and discussed the utilization of these tools. Over 1 000 people registered for the webinar and it was live-streamed, and nearly 400 users joined the webinar and livestreaming. Watch the recording here (passcode: Y3=WFh17)

Brainstorming discussions are ongoing to develop the plan for One Health coordination and implementation in FAO ECTAD in RAP, using the Theory of Change approach. The plan will be used for resource mobilization and linkage with other technical areas in the programme.

The first-of-the-year coordination call on avian influenza for FAO ECTAD in Asia was conducted on 14 February 2023. The quarterly call aims to update the country's animal/zoonotic influenza situation, surveillance results, and progress made within three months and share knowledge among country, region and global teams.