Health Action International statement to a session of Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to draft and negotiate a World Health Organization convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response – 15 June 2022 We welcome the opportunity to share our perspective on the annotated outline of an international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response and thank the Secretariat for the effort of compiling proposals and contributions on the matter. While the document intends to offer guidance on future deliberations, we believe ⁠—as many also expressed by many governments—that greater clarity and further assurances are needed, even at this very early stage, around certain concepts, such as equity, universal access and benefit-sharing—how will they be articulated, fulfilled and achieved? We do not believe that such topics can be labelled as themes or aspirational goals as they are at the core of an effective pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and have been largely side-lined in the global response to COVID-19. We support the repeated mentions of intellectual property, transparency and transfer of technology and while we hope they are explored in-depth in future negotiations, we are concerned about how such topics have been discussed and addressed at WHO in the past. Valuable initiatives like the Global Strategy on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual property, resolutions on transparency or the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool have struggled to gain traction or support by governments and other stakeholders. Finally, we welcome the possibility for additional public interest groups and academics to participate in the INB proceedings and acknowledge the effort to grant geographical representation to the discussions. We remain concerned about the possible involvement of industry-funded groups and the difficulties of smaller delegations to fully follow future negotiations.

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