Source: Reuters

Among efforts needed to strengthen global defence against future epidemics and pandemics is the establishment of a Global Health Threats Fund to mobilise $10 billion a year collectively contributed by the international community, said Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Wednesday (25 Aug).

During a World Health Organization (WHO) briefing, Mr Shanmugaratnam, who is also the co-chair G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, spoke on several of the recommendations made by the panel in its recently published report.

Warning that COVID-19 is not simply a one-off disaster, he asserted: “What is clear is that global health security is dangerously underfunded.”

“We are consequently vulnerable to a prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, with repeated waves affecting all countries, and we are also vulnerable to future pandemics. We can fix this.”

Mr Shanmugaratnam explained that the current system of global health funding being raised by individual global health organisations on a siloed basis is a “non-system of complex, inefficient, unpredictable, and greatly inadequate”.

Instead, he reiterated the panel’s call for a new global mechanism that would overcome these silos and mobilise resources on the needed scale and predictability, adding that this is the only way to “plug the gaps” in global health security with agility.

On the proposed sum of $10 billion a year, Mr Shanmugaratnam noted that it would require countries to only contribute a small percentage of about 0.1 per cent of their annual budgets.

“That sounds like a large sum but $10 billion spread across a large number of countries on a fair and equitable basis means national contributions that are less than one-thousandth of the annual budgets of almost all countries.

“The fund will catalyse funding from other sources as well besides national contributions. It’ll catalyse funding from private, philanthropic and bilateral sources,” he elaborated.

The Senior Minister also said that the fund with not be a new institution with its own operations but will rather serve to fund existing institutions and networks, and prioritise based on the needs of the times.

“This way, we add a strong multilateral layer on top of a siloed landscape without duplicating existing mechanisms,” he added.

Better governance of financing for global health security

Mr Shanmugaratnam later pointed out that greater and sustained funding for global health security can only be achieved with better governance, noting that this should be done without replicating existing governance mechanisms.

He then explained the need for a mechanism to ensure a proactive rather than reactive funding of global health security and the alignment of different sources of internal financing, as well as how they are deployed.

Mr Shanmugaratnam also stressed the need for a mechanism that brings together finance and health decision-makers around the world, noting that the existing governance of global health at the WHO and World Health Assembly lacks this particular mechanism.

As such, he cited the G20 high-level independent panel’s proposal to establish an inclusive G20 Plus board comprising of health and finance ministers from nations around the globe, with the WHO and other key multilateral organisations playing a key role.

Beyond that, the panel has also proposed the establishment of a permanent independent secretariat to support the board and the fund, with the secretariat drawing on the resources of the WHO and other key multilateral organisations.

Repurpose international financial institutions

Another recommendation by the panel is to repurpose international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) so that they can bolster countries’ preparedness in normal times and respond quickly when a pandemic occurs.

“The IMF, World Bank, and the [multilateral development banks] are unique international institutions with the ability to catalyse domestic investments by national governments as well as leverage private sector investments,” said Mr Shanmugaratnam.

“They have the ability to multiply resources, and we’ve got to make much better use of these international financial institutions.”

He stressed, “We have to make financing of global public goods for resilience against climate change as well as pandemic security part of the core mandates of these international financial institutions.”

Mr Shanmugaratnam went on to urge shareholders to support the move by making timely replenishment of grants and capital required by such institutions so as to ensure that the greater focus on public doesn’t come at the expense of poverty reduction and shared prosperity.

“We cannot prevent recurring pandemics through incremental reforms to individual organisations, but neither can we wait for a grand reconstruction of the global architecture, which in any event is unlikely to come.

“We must instead strengthen multilateralism, strengthen the WHO and evolve and repurpose the international financial institutions. Establish a new effective multilateral mechanism to overcome today’s siloed financing, and to mobilise the much larger and sustained funding that is required,” he explained.

Stressing again that the collective investments required for this are “affordable” and that these steps have to be taken urgently, Mr Shanmugaratnam said: “It will be economically and politically myopic and morally indefensible to defer the collective actions and investments that are in both the global interest and the national self-interest everywhere.”

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