Last week the Republic of Uganda’s National Action Plan on AMR was signed. The plan represents a comprehensive approach to AMR across sectors, reflecting the range of activities recommended in the Global Action Plan blueprints from WHO, OIE and FAO. The delivery of the objectives in the action plan will rely on the growing group of committed Ugandans who have been spearheading AMR research and practice for the past several years. Action will build on the impressive range of science and social science work being undertaken across a range of institutions – as presented at the country’s Third National AMR Conference in November.

However, AMR does not operate in a vacuum – the topic competes for space in policy and practice arenas, and critically it competes for limited resources. To be able to achieve the stewardship, infection control and surveillance ambitions in the plan will require commitment of resources to infrastructure that is often taken for granted. For example, supplies of required antibiotics, availability of water and waste systems and numbers of well-trained health care professionals on the payroll are often considered such basic needs they go without mention. These aspects may not produce a financial return for those seeking to care through ‘investment’, but they will form a platform for those seeking to invest in care.

Investment and infrastructure were topics attended to in a workshop on ‘Problems & Principles – multidisciplinary hallmarks for addressing global AMR’ held by researchers at the Oxford Martin School and the LSHTM last week. Participants at the workshop included historians, anthropologists, microbiologists, clinicians and economists as well as representatives from policy organisations FAO, OIE and WHO. The group worked through the problems of metrics, prioritisation, inequality and implementation in relation to the formulation of AMR policy, and worked towards identifying hallmarks that would characterise good AMR policy. For insights from the speakers, look up #AntibioticHallmarks on Twitter!