On April the 26th 2019, Prof. Bassirou Bonfoh, Director of Afrique One-ASPIRE was the guest of the Université d’Abomey Calavi (UAC) of Benin. He hosted a conference on “One Health: Socio-Ecological Determinants of Health”.

Prof. Bassirou Bonfoh’s presentation was concentrating on the following points: the scientific foundations of One Health, the need for interdisciplinary collaboration and the characteristics and benefits of “citizen science”.

He particularly emphasized that the scientific underpinnings of One Health are linked to the consideration of the inextricable link between ecosystems, society, human health and animal health.

Regarding the complexity of health issues, Prof. Bonfoh reiterated that they cannot be solved with a “reductionist” approach, but rather require social and ecological systemic thinking.

It is therefore necessary to take into account the theory of motivation / incentive in the foundations of transdisciplinarity; which nowadays has become a career discipline.

Finally, the application of One Health must be based on collaboration, communication and the creation of added value. He ended his talk by inviting participants to practice citizen and non-activist science.

Following this conference, he visited the premises of the Laboratory of Microbiology of the Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Transmissibles (URMAT), of the Ecole Polytechnique d’Abomey-Calavi (EPAC). It was an opportunity for him to present the scientific and social success story of inter and transdisciplinary research of the dairy sector in Mali and Côte d’Ivoire (projects Lait Saint for the Sahel and Safe Food Fair Food). Prof. Bonfoh provided advice to the laboratory team on the conduct of their research. He notably invited them to the interdisciplinary approach (One Health) during exploratory interviews.