The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis, with human, economic and social costs unprecedented in recent history. The crisis highlighted the need for a broad-based global effort to improve prevention, surveillance, preparedness and response to health challenges. The global community's mind-set should no longer be based on whether a new health crisis may hit, but rather on when this will happen again.
Beside the massive efforts undertaken by the international community to develop and distribute vaccines, testing capacity and treatments, and to strengthen disease surveillance networks, long term mechanisms to ensure global health are lacking.
Without an appropriate funding system, the world may be unable to develop an effective and coordinated approach to manage future epidemics. To address this concern, in January 2021, the G20 established a High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) to find solutions designed to finance the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response.
The Panel, proposed by the Italian G20 Presidency, was tasked to assess the current financing systems and propose viable solutions for the longer term.
In particular, the Panel's model are working to identify the pandemic surveillance and prevention financing gaps and propose solutions to meeting these gaps on a systematic and sustainable basis, and to optimally leveraging resources from the public, private and philanthropic sectors and, the International Financial Institutions.
The Panel, co-chaired by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organization, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Singapore, and Lawrence Summers, Former United States Treasury Secretary, will build on World Health Organization's assessment of gaps in pandemic preparedness and on ongoing international initiatives aimed at enhancing global preparedness and response.
In these first months, Panel's members have been meeting regularly and they are interacting with international institutions and with a range of experts and stakeholders comprising NGOs, development aid agencies, academia, philanthropies, and key private sector actors.
On 7 April 2021, the Panel provided a first Progress Note to the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBGs), who gathered for their second official meeting under the Italian G20 Presidency. This document highlights that a functioning system for financing pandemic prevention, preparedness and response must essentially be recognised by the international community as a global public good, as viruses respect no borders. Ensuring a widespread global access is both a scientific and economic need and a commitment to leaving no one behind.
Funding so far has been grossly inadequate, fragmented, overly reliant on ad-hoc contributions and not reactive enough. There is now a major opportunity to chart a course for enhanced financing that transforms our ability to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics. In order to do so, it would be crucial to assure more reliable, continuous financing during 'peacetime', as well as the capacity to mobilize funds swiftly to meet the surge in needs during a pandemic.
The members also recognised the key role robust and inclusive national healthcare systems can play, especially in Low Income Countries and Lower-Middle Income Countries. Strengthening national systems to prepare for future pandemics also serves ongoing public health needs, tackling emerging infectious diseases, and the longer term development of human capital.
A strong and credible system for financing the global commons is key to securing enhanced and sustained funding for pandemic preparedness and response. Furthermore, an effective global governance is needed to enable the system to work as a system, by leveraging the comparative advantages of different stakeholders, and ensuring coherence and effectiveness in the use of funds.
In the next months the Panel will continue its work to present its final report at the G20 FMCBG meeting in July 2021. A Task Force composed of experts from Finance and Health Ministries, with the support of the WHO, the OECD and other relevant international organizations, will then review the Panel's recommendations and propose follow up actions in a document to be presented, together with the report of the HLIP, for adoption at the Joint G20 Meeting of Finance and Health Ministers next October. In the coming months these activities will progress in parallel with other international initiatives to tackle the pandemic, first being the Global Health Summit in Rome on May 21st.
All the Panel's activities, related background material and information are available in a dedicated website (https://www.pandemic-financing.org/resources.html) launched for promoting the Panels activities.
