Collaborations in Occupational Health and Safety – linkages with and between global organisations

North-South collaborative links in occupational health and safety (OHS) are well established and growing. The National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH), South Africa, has long-standing associations with numerous international organisations, e.g. WHO, ILO, NIOSH, FIOH, HSL. Two particular programmes have contributed significantly to the region: the Fogarty International Center/University of Michigan Southern African Programme in Occupational and Environmental Health Training (academic focus); and the Sida-sponsored Work and Health in Southern Africa (WAHSA) Programme (driven by workplace interventions). Both programmes have laid solid foundations for sustainable OHS development, addressing a wide scope of issues including infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.    More recent South-South collaborative links are being actively developed, particularly in the Portuguese speaking countries, in South America and Africa and have covered, for example, workplace HIV and malaria. This South-South exchange has been extended to include Spanish speaking Argentina, mostly through the activities of the Working Group on Occupational Infectious Agents (WGOIA) of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH). The WGOIA has the benefit of being globally representative, with active members with OHS expertise, from Europe, Asia, Australasia, the Americas and Africa.      The current Global Network Plan (2009–2012) of the WHO Collaborating Centres (CC) in Occupational Health (OH) is based on the Global Plan for Action for Workers’ Health. The WHO CC in OH Network represents a substantial component of the world’s leading ministerial, academic and professional communities in OH, and the Network includes three major organisations in formal affiliation with the WHO: ICOH, IOHA and IEA. The main objective of the ongoing collaborative work within the WHO Network is the implementation of the global agenda for OHS. Links have been sought and developed to cement and disseminate the concerted outputs of the WGOIA, in collaboration with the WHO and other OHS organisations.