Civil society leaders urge UN General Assembly President Volkan Bozkir to use the informal plenary on July 28 to formally start the process for a UN High-Level Summit on Global Health Security and Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness during the 76th session of the General Assembly.
Your Excellency,
On behalf of the Pandemic Action Network and our partners around the world, we welcome the announcement of an informal plenary of the General Assembly on 28 July to discuss what the world needs to do to prevent and prepare for future pandemics, informed by the findings and recommendations of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) and other review efforts. The devastating health, economic, and social impacts of this deadly, costly, and protracted global crisis underscore that it is well past time for the community of nations to prioritize and prepare for pandemics as the existential, catastrophic, and growing global security threats they are. We urge you to ensure that the outcome of this plenary is a commitment to a concrete, time-bound political process for international action on pandemic prevention and preparedness.
Specifically, we urge you to use the 28 July 2021 informal meeting to kick off a formal process and set a date during the 76th session of the General Assembly — ideally within the first six months or no later than September 2022 — for a UN High-Level Summit on Global Health Security and Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness at the Heads of State or Government level. The Summit should agree to a Political Declaration or similar, which outlines a set of concrete solutions, backed by the requisite financing, institutional, and policy reforms, and member state commitments, that will ensure an international system better prepared to detect, prevent, and respond to pandemic threats. Given the whole of society nature of pandemics, it will be essential that the Summit fully and actively engage leaders of multilateral institutions, civil society organizations, private sector, foundations, academic, and research institutions alongside government leaders.
The proposals from the IPPPR, the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (G20), the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), our Network, and others have been based on robust evidence, deep consultation, thorough analysis, and active debate before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a striking convergence of recommendations around the global financing, governance, and accountability reforms that are urgently needed; what has been sorely lacking is political will to act.
While accelerating the global COVID-19 response remains the most urgent priority, we cannot afford to wait until this pandemic is over to begin to bolster our collective defenses against emerging pandemic threats. Now is the time to lay the foundation for a resilient international system that can act quickly and equitably to prevent a health emergency of this scale from occurring in the future. Too often, political will for system change recedes as a crisis wanes. World leaders must seize this opportunity to commit to pandemic-proof the future and leave a legacy of a healthier and safer world.
Pandemic Action Network and our partners stand ready to work with you to support this process. Thank you for your urgent attention to this matter, and we look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Carolyn Reynolds
Co-founder
Pandemic Action Network
On behalf of:
If your organization would like to sign on, please email Hanna Hwang.
