A Call to Action for Health, Environment, and Development Leaders

Our world is changing. Ongoing economic, technological, and demographic shifts are altering the nature of today’s major, global issues and challenging us to rethink our past and current approaches to solving them. The world’s population is increasing rapidly, and individuals are living longer than ever before. As our planet becomes more populated and prosperous, the demand for finite resources—such as water, energy, and food—are increasing rapidly. These trends escalate the urgency to find new ways of addressing persistent and growing challenges. Despite decades of evidence generation and progress on global challenges such as poverty, malnutrition, pollution, climate change, and humanitarian crises, these issues persist—and are intensifying in many cases. The current research and policy systems inhibit integrated approaches to problem solving. Too often, the health, environment, and development sectors work independently setting narrowly defined objectives and failing to consider consequences outside of their own sector. A Call to Action for Health, Environment, and Development Leaders and a companion paper Bridge Collaborative Practitioner’s Guide: Principles and Guidance for Cross-sector Action Planning and Evidence Evaluation contribute to a growing movement aimed at increasing cross-sectoral focused on shared evidence.