Released in advance of the first Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) meeting on the WHO Pandemic Agreement — July 9-10, 2025.
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We encourage all Member States to work expeditiously to operationalise the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) to draft and negotiate a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (PABS). This is critical work needed to advance equitable access to outbreak and pandemic medical countermeasures, and an essential step to advance the promise and potential of the pandemic agreement.
It is important to keep up momentum and adopt a PABS Annex at the next World Health Assembly. We therefore urge Member States to adopt a process that will drive rapid progress, including an efficient timeline and clear milestones for success.
Negotiations must build on past progress, leverage the insights and expertise shared during expert consultations, and bring in expertise from across public health and environmental backgrounds from the very start. We urge you to align early on priority themes and core structure, and consider a schedule to tackle the toughest issues first to truly move the needle toward alignment and agreement. We appreciate the idea of a structured template to gather proposed texts, and stress that strategically timed meetings and well-used informal and intra-sessional opportunities will be essential to achieve a May 2026 deadline.
We care deeply about an equitable and effective PABS, and we look forward to continued engagement in this process. We will offer any support that helps to ensure a PABS Annex that can deliver benefits to everyone, everywhere.
Signed:
Pandemic Action Network
Panel for a Global Public Health Convention
Spark Street Advisors
Helen Clark, Co-Chair, The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response
