T’ECH DP promotes and advances collaboration and partnerships in the areas of health, ecology, culture, and technology in support of the UN development goals.
About T’ECH DP
T’ECH DP stands for “Development Partnerships for Technology, Ecology, Culture, and Health, Incorporated.,” a non-government and non-profit organization registered in Delaware, the United States. T’ECH DP is also registered with DESA at the United Nations in New York. Its scope is international, with a network of collaborators located in different parts of the world. The organization aims to promote and advance collaboration and partnerships in the areas of health, ecology, culture, and technology in support of the UN development goals.
Mission & Vision
T’ECH DP is dedicated to building partnerships for development. We facilitate multi-stakeholder collaboration on the intersecting themes of health, ecology, culture, and technology — advancing human, societal, and planetary health and wellbeing in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We are guided by the vision of “One Health, One Planet, for a Better Future.”
Cultural Values
T’ECH DP upholds core principles of “Trust, Collaboration, and Impact.” It strives to deliver effectiveness and meaningful results through innovative collaboration or partnerships, based on trust and integrity.
What We Do
T’ECH DP builds capacity and collaboration through the following modalities or instruments.
- Development Forums and Workshops
T’ECH DP hosts and organizes international forums and workshops to debate critical development issues, explore advanced development concepts, research and practices, and promote awareness of important issues in the context of the global development agenda and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG No. 3 “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages,” SDG No. 13 “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,” SDG No. 17, “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development,” among other SDGs.
- Communication and Public Advocacy
T’ECH DP drives passion for One Health into daily lives, both in the academic community and for the public. It advocates and promotes advanced concepts, practices, and culture of health to people around the world, by disseminating important One Health news and updates in the forms of online news articles, health bulletins, workshops, forum proceedings, and events, etc.
- Facilitation of R&D and Good Practices
Working with the academic community and industrial counterparts, T’ECH DP supports and facilitates R&D in selected areas of One Health, i.e., food as medicine, traditional medicine, green-living, circular economy, cross-cultural communication, etc. Based on research and through consultations with international standard authorities and agencies, T’ECH DP may propose and promote certain guidelines and good practices, as well as treatments found in traditional medicines.
- Global Partnerships
Collaborating with the scientific community, businesses, governments, and civil society in countries around the world, T’ECH DP accomplishes its objectives through establishing and promoting various, including public-private and academic partnerships, towards achieving results in selected areas.
Background
Health
Health is one of the most essential conditions of life. Over centuries, individuals and peoples, groups and societies, researchers and practitioners interpreted the notion of health in different ways and strived to understand what health is, how it is created, and what could be done to improve people’s health.
Democritus (c.460 – c.370 BC), an influential Ancient Greek philosopher, said that “without health nothing is of any use, not money nor anything else”. René Descartes, the famous French philosopher and scientist, wrote in 1637 that “the preservation of health is … without doubt the first good and the foundation of all the other goods of this life.” The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in its 1948 constitution as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
People perceive health as essential to well-being; it occupies a higher order of meaning in our lives. We put a high value on health because while money and power provide the means to attain material things that may benefit our lives, health itself cannot be bought and sold; meanwhile we, the human beings, can and should both individually and collectively act to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
“One Health”
As history and science advance, people recognize that the health of humans, animals domestic or wild, plants, and the wider environment including ecosystems are closely linked and interdependent, particularly in the wake of the recent pandemics.
At a historic juncture, in response to the recommendations of the 2007 International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza in New Delhi, FAO, WOAH, WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, and the United Nations System Influenza Coordination (UNSIC) came together to develop a document titled “Contributing to One World, One Health™ – A Strategic Framework for Reducing Risks of Infectious Diseases at the Animal-Human-Ecosystems Interface.” And on March 17, 2022 four international agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) signed a groundbreaking agreement to strengthen cooperation to sustainably balance and optimize the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment, in the Quadripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a new era of One Health collaboration. One Health is an approach calling for “the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally, to attain optimal health for people, animals and our environment.”
As defined by WHO, “One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems.” And in terms of CDC, “One Health is a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach — working at the local, regional, national, and global levels — with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.”
Human health and planetary health are of One Health.
Global Development – from MDGs to SDGs
In September 2000, world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a global partnership to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, combating diseases and achieving universal primary education, and setting out a series of targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Health issues were addressed to a various extent in all 8 MDGs, ranging from nutrition and access to safe drinking water, health education, health services and access to medications, to prevention of diseases and improvement in the lifestyles of millions of peoples.
Because the MDGs were to be achieved by 2015, a further process was needed and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development titled Transforming our world was adopted on 25 September 2015. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the associated 169 targets are broader and more ambitious than the MDGs; they call for action by all countries to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and addresses a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while fighting inequalities, tackling climate change and environmental protection and ensuring that “no one is left behind”.
Almost all the SDGs are directly related to or contribute to human and planetary health indirectly. SDG 3 specifically sets out to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” SDG 13 aims to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” to protect the planet.
Links of References
https://www.cdc.gov/one-health/about/one-health-history.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/one-health