WHO Pandemic Accord: The Final Stretch Begins
As we approach the final months of member-state negotiations over a World Health Organization Pandemic Accord, due to come before the World Health Assembly in May, the efforts to forge a consensus have witnessed modest progress. However, the original divide between developed and developing countries on key issues such as finance, access and benefit sharing, transfer of health technologies, and ‘One Health’ approaches to pandemic prevention, continue to cast a long shadow over the process. Some critics worry that an accord, if and when one is achieved by the 2024 deadline, may be less meaningful in terms of substance and impact, because of the compromises required to reach an agreement.
This issue of the Governing Pandemics Snapshot, the latest in the Geneva Graduate Institute series, recaps highlights of the past six months of negotiations. It takes a closer look at three strategic issues:
The conundrum of parallel negotiations over a new ”Pandemic Accord’ alongside negotiations over revisions to existing WHO International Health Regulations governing health emergencies;
Proposals for turning the new Pandemic Accord into a WHO Pandemic “regulation” – sidestepping the thorny issue of country ratification;
Complex issues around the sharing of pathogen genetic sequence data (GSD), essential for the development of new medicines and vaccines – but also a resource that developing countries assert needs recompense from the pharma industry.