Our partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) is addressing the chronic shortage of qualified animal health workers across the Pacific and Timor-Leste. Together, we are working towards the regional goal of a paraveterinary workforce that is adequately and sustainably trained to support local livestock productivity and regional biosecurity. 

This project was developed in response to an identified need within the Pacific to increase diagnostic capacity for animal and zoonotic diseases. The establishment of a Pacific Laboratory Network, including reference laboratories in Australia and New Zealand, will ensure regional coordination, consistent diagnostic approaches, and timely support for animal disease investigations.

Australia’s partnership with Regional Emergency and Critical Care Systems Strengthening Initiative (RECSI) consortium will produce more resilient and equitable health systems across the Pacific and Timor-Leste by strengthening emergency and critical care capacity. RECSI will address capability gaps highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and advance World Health Assembly recommendations to strengthen universal health coverage.

Australia is partnering with the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Development (WHO CCNM (UTS)) at the University of Technology Sydney, working with the South Pacific Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officers Alliance (SPCNMOA) to improve nursing and midwifery leadership, education, standards, and practice, through the Strengthening Health Workforce in the Pacific (SHWP) initiative.

NCIRS is harnessing the collective skills of Australian Regional Immunisation Alliance (ARIA) members to support Ministries of Health and other key partners to strengthen immunisation programs across our region. ARIA is comprised of more than 65 experts and over 10 affiliated organisations, and works collaboratively with other agencies, including the WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is partnering with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to co-deliver the Indo-Pacific Regulatory Strengthening Program (RSP). This program extends the previous TGA-led RSP and covers 22 countries across our region.

The Indo-Pacific region’s health security system, or its ability to avoid and contain infectious disease threats with the potential to cause social and economic harms on a national, regional or global scale, has many weaknesses in both human and animal health. In the last 20 years approximately two-thirds of all new or re-occurring infectious diseases affecting people have originally come from animals. These types of diseases are called zoonoses.