Press conference: "Pandemic Treaty Negotiations: Perpetuating COVID-19 Failure?"

PANDEMIC TREATY NEGOTIATIONS: PERPETUATING COVID-19 FAILURE?

Geneva, 12th March 2024

The Society for International Development (SID) and Wemos, members of the independent civil society platform Geneva Global Health Hub, convened a press conference to renew attention on key aspects of financing and governance related to the ongoing World Health Organization (WHO) negotiation on a pandemic treaty.

Over the course of its two-year tenure, substantial resources in terms of time and finances have been invested for the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) appointed by the WHO to formulate a new binding global treaty for addressing pandemics – the pandemic treaty. The proclaimed purpose of this diplomatic process, with its impending deadline set for May 2024, is to prevent and prepare for another COVID-19-like catastrophe focusing on surveillance structures and on biomedical solutions as the primary – and very limited – approach.

With the negotiation window rapidly narrowing and substantial ground yet to be covered towards achieving a substantive agreement, the opportunity of establishing normative standards that truly enhance equity in global public health hangs in the balance.

The latest revised draft text developed by the INB Bureau was circulated last 8th March. It provides the textual rationale for the final round of negotiations starting on 18h March (INB 9). The circulation of the latest text prompted G2H2 members to hold a press conference on 12th March. There, experts outlined substantial concerns already anticipated and raised in previous reports, emphasizing financial justice as an essential ingredient to face new potential pandemic crises. Responding to the growing apprehension that the trajectory of the treaty may set a worrisome precedent, the event shed light on questionable developments that could easily emerge in the remaining 10 days of uncertain negotiations lingering ahead.

Read the entire press release here !

Speakers

• Nicoletta Dentico. 
  She is co-chair of the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2) and leads the global health justice program at Society for International Development (SID). 

• Mariska Meurs. 
  She is one of the founding members of the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2) and the team lead for Finance for Health at Wemos, a Dutch NGO that advocates the right to Health For All.

• Garrett Wallace Brown.
  He is Chair of Global Health Policy at the University of Leeds and the Co-Lead of the Global Health Research Unit, and will be the Director of a new WHO Collaboration Centre for Health Systems and Health Security.

Documentation

• G2H2/SID/Wemos press release, 12 March 2024
• Zoom cloud recording of the press conference, 12 March 2024
• Speakers Bio
• More material shared at the press conference
  > Eye-Catching-Figures
  > Slides
  > G2H2 Report on Financial Justice (November 2022)
  > G2H2 Report on the Politics of a WHO pandemic treaty (November 2021)

Contacts

• Media enquiries:
  Alice Di Pace, Communications officer, adipace@sidint.org