The World Health Organization (WHO) stands as one of humanity’s most valuable institutions, embodying the collective will to ensure health as a human right and well-being for all. Since its establishment in 1948, WHO Member States and Secretariat have been at the forefront of the fight against global health challenges, coordinating international responses to crises, and driving innovations that have saved millions of lives.
Over the past decades, these achievements have showcased the potential of nations coming together around a shared goal. The coordination essential for a global response to health emergencies, has highlighted WHO’s role as a leader in providing vital guidance, resources, and vaccines to countries in need.
The emergence of Covid-19 served as a powerful wake-up call to alert the international community on unmet global and national needs, such as insufficient surveillance and iniquitous gaps to address latent deficiencies in health infrastructure, management and international health coordination. Preventing disease outbreaks from escalating into pandemics, and the consequent ability to prevent such events, has become one of the most pressing challenges of our era. This led to the proposal for a Pandemic Treaty. But after more than three years of negotiations, no agreement has been reached.
Conscious of the unprecedentedly challenging moment for the WHO and convinced of the undeniable worth of the organization in the coordination of cross-border efforts to eradicate communicable diseases, the Members of Club de Madrid join the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention in strongly calling for the agreement on the much needed Pandemic Treaty to be reached without delay. A broadly viable, sustainable and equitable pandemic instrument must be achieved before the next Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) meetings in February and April 2025 so that the World Health Assembly can ratify it in May.
It is a time for a long-term and strategic view of international health coordination and cooperation, for give and take, not winners and losers. A Pandemic Treaty and the creation of a Conference of the Parties is a task that all nations of the world should endorse and support to prevent possible catastrophic occurrences.
Now is the time to demonstrate the capacity of WHO’s 194 Member States to make the organisation stronger and more accountable and this can only be done from within, with a robust and resilient system and with instrument such as a Pandemic Treaty that will allow the organisation to better foster international health cooperation and guide evidence-based policy-making. This will become the best testimony to the power of effective multilateralism and solidarity in addressing global challenges, principles that, along with respect for fundamental rights and the rule of law, are central to Club de Madrid’s core mission.
READ THE LETTER HERE
Signatories, all Members of Club de Madrid:
- Türk, Danilo – President of Slovenia (2007-2012) & President of Club de Madrid
- Bachelet, Michelle – President of Chile (2006-2010; 2014-2018) & Vice President of Club
de Madrid - Alvarado, Carlos – President of Costa Rica (2018-2022)
- Gurría, Ángel – Secretary General of the OECD (2006-2021)
- Jomaa, Mehdi – Prime Minister of Tunisia (2014-2015)
- Löfven, Stefan – Prime Minister of Sweden (2014-2021)
- Mara, Moussa – Prime Minister of Mali (2014-2015)
- Sagasti, Francisco – President of Peru (2020-2021)
- Touré, Aminata – Prime Minister of Senegal (2013-2014)
