In December 2021, the World Health Assembly established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

The ninth meeting of the INB is currently being held in a hybrid format until 28 March 2024. At INB8, Member States requested the INB Bureau, formed by six officers, one from each of the six WHO regions, to develop a revised draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement. This draft will be the basis of textual negotiations at INB9.

The opening and closing plenary sessions of the INB are open to WHO Member States, Associate Members, Observers and regional economic integration organizations, as well all relevant stakeholders. These sessions will be publicly webcast and archived for later viewing. Substantive negotiating sessions will be held in closed format.

PSI intervention - read by PSI Health & Social Services Officer Baba Aye

On behalf of Public Services International, the global union federation representing more than 30 million worldwide, we call on member states to recall the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. The future instrument must include legally binding measures, to avoid needless deaths and drastic measures like the Great Lockdown.

It is imperative to strengthen the provisions related to health and care workforce, including decent work, principle of precaution and occupation and safety and health as principles of pandemic PPR. We welcome the inclusions in Art. 7, but we need more as health and care workers are the backbone of health systems and PPR.

We need to include obligations regarding access to benefits, a legally binding and automatically-triggered intellectual property waiver, strengthening production capacity of developing countries and language related to adequate funding of public health systems, as well as unequivocal commitment to equity within and between countries. Now, more than ever, Member States must put people before profits and health before wealth.