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A Call To Action to H20 leaders

The G20 Health & Development Partnership has issued a Call to Action to G20 leaders following a two-day H20 Summit at the WHO in Geneva. The Summit – organised by @G20HDP and co-hosted by the T20 – brought together key players in the global health policy community with over 70 expert speakers making recommendations on investment in pandemic preparedeness, preventing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and anti-microbial resistance (AMR); as well as on global health architecture, digital health and diagnostics.

The Call to Action below has been signed by international health NGOs, politicians and academics. It calls on the G20 to put the new Financial Intermediary Fund a long-term footing with sustainable funding. The Call to Action also urges the G20 and G7, IMF, the World Bank and the Paris Club to tackle the growing debt crisis resulting from the pandemic with measures, such as, debt to health swaps.

The G20 and WHO, with the support of multilateral development banks, are urged to help create regional Centres of Excellence for collaborative R&D and manufacture of diagnostics and therapeutics. The G20 Digital Health Taskforce should be given a mandate for addressing equity, evidence and scale up of digital interventions across health systems with a focus on primary care

It also recommends a new permanent ‘structured dialogue’ to tackle AMR a new comprehensive plan of action to reduce the incidence of NCDs such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

See the Call To Action here

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Video interview – lessons learned from more than two years of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Together with other global health leaders, Alan Donnelly, and Hatice Küçük Beton, Convener and Executive Director of the G20 Health and Development Partnership (G20HDP), share their perspectives and lessons learned from more than two years of the COVID-19 Pandemic in an interview with the Sabin Vaccine Institute in April 2022.

They highlight that we have to move away from a system in which rich countries chose to gift to low- and middle-income countries in moments of crisis and adopt a new financial architecture for pandemic preparedness that is inclusive, transparent and has accountability mechanisms in place. Alan says: “Our role as advocates is to absolutely knock on everyone’s doors as we’ve been doing for the last several years to make sure health is at the top of the political agenda”, ensuring that health is not treated in the same way as natural disasters.

A Financial Intermediary Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response was established by the World Bank on June 30, 2022. Since 2019, the G20HDP has been advocating for a new and inclusive global health architecture and new financing mechanisms for health and is working closely with the key players to strengthen its governance, equity and accountability.

Read ‘A shared commitment to secure our shared future’ blog post here 

Watch the video

Shinzo Abe

Our condolences on the assassination of Shinzo Abe

We are utterly shocked and saddened by the terrible news that Mr Abe has been murdered today.

Prime Minister Abe was a giant on the world stage – with an extraordinary impact both on Japan and the global community.

To his great credit – he was fully engaged in the democratic process, campaigning, as he had done throughout his life, when his life was taken.

In terms of his work on health, he brought together Health and Finance Ministers in 2019 for the first time during the Japan G20 Presidency – pre COVID. That initiative was typically forward looking and has been continued regularly by other presidencies and has been critical in the global response to the COVID pandemic.

Within the G20 Health and Development Partnership, our thoughts are with Mr Abe’s family and all of the people of Japan at this tragic moment.

 

Professor Rajendra Gupta

G20 Health & Development Partnership announces Dr Rajendra Pratap Gupta as new Global Ambassador

“I am excited to be nominated G20 Health & Development Partnership as their Global Ambassador. G20 is playing a crucial role in shaping the global agenda, and the efforts through this partnership will help push the right ideas for health through G20 in Indonesia in 2022 and going forward. It is a noble cause, and we must do all within our means to support this critical effort for sustainable development” 

Dr Rajendra Pratap Gupta Founder, Health Parliament

 

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Financing new global health emergency framework is within reach

On 20-21 June, Health Ministers and Finance Ministers gathered in Indonesia under the auspices of the Indonesian G20 Presidency announced more than $1 billion in funds for Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Chair and Executive Director of the G20 Health and Development Partnership Alan Donnelly and Hatice Kücük Beton look at how the financing for the new FIF is now within reach. Read the article in Politico here.

 

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Pandemic preparedness – Politico op-ed

Ever since the outbreak of COVID-19, pandemic preparedness and response, twinned with global health security has been at the forefront of people’s minds. Within the G20 Health and Development Partnership, we have advocated for measures to improve pandemic preparedness to help prevent, detect and respond to new pathogens and outbreaks to the highest levels of G20 policymaking. 

In an op-ed in Politico, the Chair of our subgroup on Pandemic Preparedness and Response, Hester Kuipers, Executive Director, IAVI wrote her viewpoint on how the world can best tackle disease threats and improve our security for all. 

Read the Politico op-ed here.

Photo credit IAVI

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Our Beyond COVID-19 event in February

On February 1 2022, the G20 Health and Development Partnership held a virtual event with the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union on digital health, called ‘Beyond COVID-19: A multi-sector approach to accelerating the digital health transformation’.

The event brought together politicians, policymakers and the global health community from our Partnership and beyond across three panels to look at how to the EU Digital Decade by 2030; how to put theory into practice to scale up digital innovation; and looking at best practices in digital healthcare systems. A summary of the event written up and published by SIH Solutions can be downloaded here. 

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How to Design a Pandemic Preparedness and Response Fund

Finance Ministers must act decisively this week in establishing the new Pandemic Preparedness and Response fund and architecture 

OPED BY: PROF. DR. MARIANA MAZZUCATO, CHAIR WHO COUNCIL ON THE ECONOMICS OF HEALTH FOR ALL; ALAN DONNELLY, FOUNDER AND CONVENOR OF THE G20 HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP 

With over two thirds of the people on the African continent still unvaccinated against COVID-19, it is clear that global pandemic preparedness and response (PPR) remains seriously underfunded and lacks resilient systems of delivery.

The World Health Organization Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) plays a central role in addressing the current gross inequity in access to COVID testing, treatments and vaccines, but still lacks the financial commitments to comprehensively support low-income countries.

The science and economics of the last two years demonstrate that a future air-born pandemic could kill millions of people and bring economic chaos, especially with increased urbanisation and climate change. A new pandemic represents an existential threat to humanity. As with the battle against global warming, the cost of inaction is much greater than the cost of action. We must act now.  Read more