CVA Past President Dr Olatunji Nasir represented the CVA at this year’s AVMA convention in Anaheim, Califormia.

Below is Dr Nasir’s address to the convention:

“Distinguished colleagues, friends in the veterinary profession,

It is a privilege to speak today about a partnership whose potential we have only begun to tap: the collaboration between the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Commonwealth Veterinary Association.

These two bodies represent very different histories. The AVMA brings the depth of resources, research infrastructure, and policy influence of one of the world’s largest veterinary economies. The CVA brings something equally vital: a network spanning over fifty nations across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific, bound together not by geography but by shared institutional roots and a common commitment to animal health as a public good.

Imagine what becomes possible when these strengths meet. American veterinary schools and the AVMA’s continuing education infrastructure could partner with CVA member countries to close critical workforce gaps, especially in regions where veterinarians per capita remain dangerously low. Joint research initiatives could tackle zoonotic disease surveillance, where early detection in one country protects public health across continents. We could build exchange programs that send young veterinarians from Lagos to Iowa, and from Ohio to Nairobi, creating a generation of professionals who understand that animal health knows no borders.

There is also the matter of standards. As global trade in livestock and animal products grows, harmonizing welfare and biosecurity standards between AVMA member practices and CVA nations strengthens trust, market access, and ultimately, animal welfare itself.

This is not a partnership of charity. It is a partnership of mutual benefit, where expertise flows in both directions and where the challenges facing veterinary medicine today, climate change, emerging diseases, food security, are too large for any single association to solve alone.

The foundation exists. The willingness exists. What remains is the work of building it together.

Thank you.”