The Challenges in Aligning Two Track Negotiations in Global Health: Equity, Financing, Governance & Monitoring as Sticking Points
Newsletter Edition #68 [Treaty Talks]
Hi,
How should countries come together to govern on an evolving disease outbreak that could transform from an emergency of concern to a pandemic? What responses measures should kick in and when? How will these elements come together across national, regional and international levels.
WHO member states are grappling with crafting legal language on obligations during health emergencies across existing and new rules.
In today’s edition, we bring you an update from a recent joint session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body for a new Pandemic instrument, and the efforts to amend the International Health Regulations. Time ticks away, countries must necessarily come to an agreement on rationalizing some of the sticking points across these two track negotiations, if they want to meet the self-imposed deadline of May 2024.
Chapeau to the tireless negotiators who labor on these big and small details far from the public eye, working to prepare the world for future health emergencies.
As before, we bring you excerpts from country statements, because they are important [and cool] - to give our readers a glimpse of the terrain that is being charted by countries.
Who says what, and why, is the heart of our examination and scrutiny of these processes. This is hard work. Subscribe to us, so we can afford to follow these discussions and bring them to you.
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We will continue to bring you stories in real-time from the ongoing negotiations in Geneva. Watch out for more in the coming days.
Until later.
Best,
Priti
Feel free to write to us: patnaik.reporting@gmail.com. Follow us on X: @filesgeneva
I. UPDATE FROM INB8
The Challenges in Aligning Two Track Negotiations in Global Health: Equity, Financing, Governance & Monitoring as Sticking Points
By Tessa Jager & Priti Patnaik
In a joint session that brought together the ongoing two track negotiations to reform the international health emergency regime, WHO member states had difficulty rationalising and aligning common areas on equity, financing, governance and monitoring issues at a meeting last week in Geneva.
The session was part of the ongoing eighth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body set up to pull together a new Pandemic instrument.
The two bureaux of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body and the Working Group to amend the International Health Regulations drew up proposals to address key areas common to both tracks, as these negotiations converge towards their intended conclusion in May 2024. These discussions that took place on February 23, 2024, was webcast.
Countries discussed matters of ‘Public health alert – PHEIC – pandemic continuum’; Pandemic prevention, preparedness, surveillance, One Health; Equity implementation and financing; and Monitoring and Reporting. On the latter two issues, countries could not agree on how to address these issues across these two tracks. For now, consultations on these matters will continue in smaller groups as they are currently being tackled in the respective tracks.
The difficulty in reaching consensus on these seemingly technical matters also show the underlying politics in these negotiations. For example, “Definitions are foundations of obligations,” some countries said. And where certain definitions are located, and the “locus” of discussions including on financing, for example, will have implications of implementation of obligations in both these instruments. Other areas of disagreement included implications of the kinds of response measures that could kick in the various stages of a health emergency continuum. What this means for governance and binding commitments.
This story presents country statements on each of these issues. It also reflects on the nature of disagreements between countries and shows us the complexities in these negotiations.
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