ReAct Latin America at global AMR Summit in Costa Rica

2026-02-22

From January 26 to 29, 2026, the final global convening of the “Just Transitions for AMR” group took place at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

The program serves as a strategic initiative to promote inter-sectoral dialogue on complex global health challenges, specifically focusing on how to integrate antimicrobial resistance (AMR) into climate action and environmental sustainability. This international event was organized within the framework of the British Academy’s Global Convening Programme 2026, in coordination with the University of Oxford. ReAct Latin America contributed by sharing knowledge on community-led solutions to this meeting.

ReAct Latin America’s contribution to the meeting

Participating in the meeting representatives of ReAct Latin America challenged traditional medical paradigms, bringing community-led solutions and social justice to the forefront of the global efforts to deal with AMR. In his presentation at the event Juan Carlos López of ReAct Latin America in Ecuador delivered a compelling call to action regarding how the world perceives microbial threats.

López argued that the global community must move beyond “exclusively biomedical” approaches. Instead, he proposed a holistic framework that integrates innovation with narratives and community empowerment He emphasized that a sustainable response to AMR is impossible without articulating the deep relationship between the microbial world, environmental health, food systems, and social justice.

Perhaps the most striking evidence of ReAct’s community-centric model came from Patricia Nogales, representing ReAct Latin America in Bolivia. Nogales presented a significant case study from El Alto, where the practice of raising pigs in garbage landfills had created severe sanitary risks and accelerated potential resistance pathways.

Rather than treating this as a purely technical failure, Nogales used the experience to spark systemic change. She authored a narrative account of the community’s struggle and successfully spearheaded processes to reform national norms. Her work advocates for food safety jurisdiction to be moved from the agricultural authority (SENASAG) to the Ministry of Health to ensure a health-first approach. This initiative has been formally recognized by the Pan American Health Organization’s Empowered Communities project as a global benchmark for genuine community participation.

A convergence of global experts at CATIE

The Costa Rica meeting brought together a diverse group of stakeholders, including researchers, academics, civil society organizations, community activists, and institutional leaders from various countries. Notable institutional participation included the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), which provided a regional perspective on AMR leadership in Latin America.

Integrating health and environmental agendas

A significant portion of the dialogue focused on the “biocapital” concept – recognizing the inherent value of soils, microbiomes, and ecosystems. Pablo Imbach, CATIE’s Climate Action Coordinator, and Sonia Lewycka from the University of Oxford both highlighted that AMR surveillance and prevention are enabling components of climate change adaptation.

A roadmap for the future

The workshop used both “top-down” reviews of national policies and “bottom-up” designs for field-based responses. This dual approach allowed participants to identify how international trade, global supply chains, and the movement of resistant pathogens shift environmental burdens onto actors with the lowest response capacity.

The meeting concluded with a commitment to systematize these dialogues into technical and communication products, including a public policy brief aimed at strengthening the coordination between health and climate agendas. As the program reaffirmed, the fight against antimicrobial resistance is not merely a laboratory challenge; it is a struggle for equity, participation, and the holistic protection of life.