“Equity and Financing are Really Key to Probably Doing the Deal Ultimately”: WG-IHR Co-Chairs Asiri & Bloomfield on the Amendments to IHR

Newsletter Edition #83 [Treaty Talks-IHR - The Files Interview]

Hi,

The work around the amendments to the International Health Regulations have cruised along a steady speed and are now nearing conclusion.

In today’s edition we bring you an exclusive interview with Abdullah Asiri of Saudi Arabia, and Ashley Bloomfield of New Zealand, Co-Chairs of the Working Group for the amendments to the IHR. They have led this careful process and are scheduled to steer these negotiations towards conclusion with significant and targeted amendments - mostly led by member states.

We hope you find this interview insightful and useful. It gives us a glimpse of the multi-faceted considerations that have guided these intergovernmental discussions on strengthening existing rules to govern health emergencies.

If you find our work valuable, become a paying subscriber. Tracking global health policy-making in Geneva is tough and expensive. Help us in raising important questions, and in keeping an ear to the ground. Readers paying for our work helps us meet our costs.

Watch out for more from us, as the final IHR meeting comes to a close later today. In the coming days we will bring you the state of play and behind-the-scenes dynamics in this process. (Here is our earlier story from this week in case you missed it: “Equity” Stands A Chance In the International Health Regulations. Without Financing, Compliance At Stake [WG-IHR8])

Thank you for reading.

Best,

Priti

Feel free to write to us: patnaik.reporting@gmail.com or genevahealthfiles@protonmail.com; Follow us on Twitter: @filesgeneva

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Illustration Credit: Amy Clarke, Chembe Collaborative

I. THE GENEVA HEALTH FILES INTERVIEW

“Equity and Financing are Really Key to Probably Doing the Deal Ultimately”: WG-IHR Co-Chairs Asiri & Bloomfield on the Amendments to the International Health Regulations

By Priti Patnaik & Nishant Sirohi

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On the side-lines of the final meeting of the Working Group to amend the IHR, Geneva Health Files sought an exclusive interview with Abdullah Asiri of Saudi Arabia and Ashley Bloomfield of New Zealand, Co-Chairs of the working group. This interview was conducted on April 25th at WHO.

The co-chairs tell us that this package of amendments will be by far the most significant update of the IHR 2005 regulations and are calling it “a real step change”. Read on.

Q1. Geneva Health Files [GHF]: How has the meeting been going? What is the current mood after the first few days? You had suggested that you might be able to conclude most of it by Friday (April 26^th) and if needed, maybe an additional session after the INB resumed session in May 2024. Is that getting clearer now?

Abdullah Asiri [AA]:

Thank you very much. No, we plan to finish by Friday. So, keeping this message to Member States. We are progressing really well. I believe we'll be able to accomplish most of the core issues that have been arising through the process. However, there are, of course, other situations that might necessitate continuous discussion, but we don't want to really bring this upfront unless we have to. So, we still believe that by the end of the WG-IHR 8 we will be able to deliver on our mandate.

GHF: Would you already know… I guess on which specific issues that you're suggesting might need more time. Are they also linked to the INB?

Ashley Bloomfield [AB]:

Two things. To your original question… the mood in the room is very positive and extremely constructive, and it has been throughout the process. But even this week, we notice real flexibility, engagement, and strong aspiration and our sense is that everybody would like to finish this process, to actually help build momentum and create good momentum going into the INB process. And on some of those key crossover issues, like financing, for example, actually, there is no reason why we can't thrash them out and get some resolution on them in our process. And as we've said, and gift them to the INB. We can make their job hopefully easier.

The other point here is, we talked about it this morning, any task expands to fill the time available, and if we say there is more time available, then that reduces the pressure because the challenge in all these negotiations as things go, the most challenging issues go to the wire. Now we are just clear where that wire is. And it is at the end of tomorrow.

If there are any outstanding matters, and we raised this at the start that, it may need some small adjustments pending the outcome of the INB discussions. But not major changes, we will seek out a mandate and outline a process for how we might make any minor adjustments after the end of this week, if that's required.

GHF: So does that mean you're actually ruling out an additional day at this point or you're open to having some additional time after the INB?

[AB]:

We're ruling it out. Well, in the sense that we're not planning for it, and our very strong preference is that we don't need to do that.

This is the time for us to drive towards consensus. And judging by the momentum we've got, we had another good morning. This afternoon, we're returning to our two critical issues of Article 44 and Article 13, with some updated text.

We're going to really focus on those because we are clear that those are the ones that are really key to probably doing the deal ultimately.

Image Credit: Photo by Jan van der Wolf, Pexels