Principle 1 of the Rio Declaration summarizes what we must do to achieve sustainable development. It cannot be achieved if there is incapacitating illness and poverty, and health cannot be maintained without healthy environments and life support systems. And yet, we currently face many development challenges: high poverty and inequity; a global burden of disease, 21% of which is estimated to be due to poor quality of the environment; poorly managed natural resources; and new, emerging, and remerging infectious diseases. This suggests an urgent need to understand the linkages between health, environment, and poverty, and the nature of the trade-offs in choices made by the poor.  It also suggests the need to identify interventions that are multi-sectoral, involving not just the health and/or environmental sectors. Health is both an outcome and a resource for sustainable development, and understanding its role calls for integrated thinking, innovative approaches, inclusive processes, partnerships, and empowered communities. The Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health Program Initiative (the Ecohealth PI) seeks to respond to this call.

 

The special niche of IDRC is its support of research for development, capacity building, and policy influence. In the context of the dynamics of health and environment, the Ecohealth PI focuses on the interacting social, political, economic and ecological contexts that influence health. It is engaged with issues of health rather than of disease, with prevention rather than just cure. It moves beyond health to concerns of sustainable development and continued well-being.