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From 4 to 7 September 2026, Dr. Raphael Aguiar, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute, contributed to two sessions on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) governance and a co-authored poster at the 9th World One Health Congress in Lisbon, Portugal.

Environment and AMR governance

On 5 September, Raphael chaired “From Governance Analysis to Practice: Integrating the Environmental Dimension into National One Health AMR Strategies.” It was co-convened by the Dahdaleh Institute with the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), the International Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions (ICARS), the AMR Multi-Partner Trust Fund (AMR-MPTF) and CIRAD. The session addressed a gap acknowledged in the 2024 UN Political Declaration on AMR: the environmental dimension, from wastewater to agri-food systems, remains weakly integrated into national strategies.

After a keynote by Jacqueline Alvarez, Chair of the AMR-MPTF Steering Committee, three country cases followed. Dr. Srinivasa Srigiri (IDOS) showed that Cambodia’s well-developed environmental regulations do not yet cover antimicrobials. Dr. Marion Bordier (CIRAD) described Senegal’s AMR policy process as still led by human health, with limited involvement of environmental and local actors. Dr. Sunday Ochai (ICARS) presented a low-cost manure composting intervention in Tanzania that is informing a national fertilizer standard. Dr. Srigiri then moderated a panel with Sophal Laska (Cambodia), Dr. Mouhamadou Moustapha Sow (Senegal) and Gloria Igihozo (Rwanda).

Raphael’s closing synthesis drew three lessons:

• Evidence on environmental drivers of AMR exists, but authority to act on it is still developing.
• Partner-funded projects need stronger links to national plans so cross-cutting areas are not deferred.
• Environmental representation matters most when it shapes funding, mandates and priorities.

The Canadian case study

Raphael also presented the Canadian case study of the DESIGN Project, co-authored with Fiona Harris and Prof. Mary Wiktorowicz, in a session organized by the Global Strategy Lab’s AMR Policy Accelerator.

Drawing on key informant interviews and document analysis, the research examined the relational dimension of AMR. The biological and social processes of AMR tend to be understood and governed as if they operated along jurisdictional and sectoral lines. Even One Health, which aims to integrate these systems, often ends up operating along those same boundaries. The team calls this gap relational misalignment, and naming it this way is one of the study’s key contributions.

In Canada, the findings highlight the collaborative foundation built through developing the Pan-Canadian Action Plan on AMR, and implementation as the stage to carry that collaboration further. Existing coordination mechanisms provide valuable platforms for information sharing, which could be extended to support joint decision-making.

Looking ahead, the research points to the value of designing coordination into governance arrangements from the outset. A governance architecture that formally recognizes the roles of local communities, subnational stakeholders, and state and non-state actors would help track AMR flows across these boundaries. Community-oriented hubs offer one practical route, building on coordination functions already in place, such as Animal Health Canada’s AMU/AMR Coordination Committee.

Raphael co-authored a poster led by Katrina Di Bacco (Université de Montréal) applying the Tripartite Surveillance and Information Sharing Operational Tool to neglected parasitic zoonoses in data-limited settings.

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