AHDA Joins Planetary Health Alliance to Combat Environmental Change and Its Health Impacts

Amplify Health and Development in Africa (AHDA) has officially become a member of the Planetary Health Alliance (PHA), a significant stride in tackling the health impacts of global environmental changes.

“As we formally welcome AHDA to our network, we are excited to work together to understand and address the profound health impacts of global environmental change” Planetary Health Alliance.

Human activity has accelerated global environmental changes at an alarming rate. Humanity is rapidly depleting natural resources, generating vast amounts of waste and pollutants, causing significant biodiversity loss, and altering landscapes, atmospheric composition, and ocean health. These changes pose severe threats to human health by degrading air quality, compromising food production, introducing new infectious diseases, reducing access to fresh water, and increasing vulnerability to natural disasters. These factors collectively undermine nutrition, mental health, and overall disease resistance.

A recent IPCC special report emphasized the urgent need for substantial greenhouse gas emissions reductions—about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030—to prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Such actions are crucial to mitigating climate-related economic, sociopolitical, and health risks.

Moreover, the recent IPBES report sheds light on additional environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, deforestation, land degradation, resource scarcity, altered biogeochemical flows, and pollution, all of which are exacerbated by human activities like population growth, demographic shifts, and increased production and consumption patterns.

By joining the Planetary Health Alliance, AHDA commits to addressing these challenges in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. AHDA’s major areas of focus are Climate Change and Health, Community engagement, and Health Systems Strengthening. 

Our membership with the Planetary Health Alliance marks a pivotal step in integrating more robust health and environmental strategies into our programs, enhancing our ability to foster sustainable development across Africa,”

Dr. Mary Nicholas, AHDA Programs Manager.

This collaboration underscores the importance of a unified global response to environmental changes and their impacts on health, aiming to safeguard the future of human and planetary well-being.