Dear Partners:
Milestones allow us a time to reflect.
It’s April 2020 and I’m alone at my laptop. “Right then,” I say to myself, “better tap up those old EU contacts I have…” This crisis calls for all hands on deck.
By April 22, 2020, we launched “Pandemic Action Network” (PAN), a name born in the first conversation between me and one of my fellow Co-founders, Gabrielle Fitzgerald. My Co-founders and I had all worked on pandemics in different ways, including through the Ebola outbreak in 2014. The urgency of the COVID crisis paired with a focus on collective action drew many partners to PAN, enabling our growth from 25 partners at launch to over 90 in 2020 alone. We are now over 400 partners strong, and growing.
While the COVID pandemic made 2020 feel pretty apocalyptic at times, 2025 has been playing catch up — with the post-war consensus on security, international development, and trade all under question, and democracy increasingly under threat.
But despite the upheaval, there are reasons to be optimistic. In April, more than 190 countries agreed on 37 articles to bring the historic pandemic agreement into life — ready for adoption and then ratification at the World Health Assembly (WHA) and beyond. The agreement is a beacon of unified multilateral cooperation at a critical time, and took incredible tenacity and diplomacy from Member States and the World Health Organisation (WHO) — they all deserve our deep gratitude, as do the amazing partners who stuck with the journey.
Our mission in 2020 was to end the COVID crisis and to ensure the world is better prepared
for emerging pandemic threats. In November 2023, we launched Resilience Action Network Africa (RANA) as a partner to enable a resilient and healthy Africa, safeguarded by African-led solutions, informed by African needs, and driven by African leadership.
In 2025, we are focused on resilience, networked advocacy, and our values.
Focusing on resilience. Resilience to shocks — be they from disease or economic threats — is essential at both individual and societal levels. That’s why our pivot to resilience, firstly with RANA, the evolution of our Africa team into a fully African-led, Africa-based entity is a keystone project for PAN and RANA. Advocacy without the benefit of lived experience and community perspectives will not achieve its stated aims. It’s time for the much-hailed power shift from North to South to include advocacy resources and funding. This evolution towards the interconnected issues of resilience is set to continue — reflecting our current work and future areas of growth.
Empowering community-driven networked advocacy. PAN and RANA lead from behind, spotlighting organisations that have the expertise and solutions to pressing problems while providing platforms, access, and advocacy support to ensure civil society influence is consistently greater than the sum of its parts. Working across issues builds resilience against current and future global health threats, and building civil society power in these difficult times necessitates us to work differently, shed organisational labels — and yes, vanity — and simply assemble all the avengers needed to achieve particular change particular objectives. We intend to continue with this powerful model — which not only serves communities but also serves to build a community and a sense of shared purpose and connection.
Acting on our values. Equity is often referenced as a priority, but when we look at equity in advocacy, partners in low- and middle-income countries need to be more visible, and need to be provided with at least the same level of support as those in the Global North. RANA was built in partnership with the aim of building a sustainable and fully independent African-led advocacy network to counter some of the structural inequities in our space, and to elevate African-led solutions.
PAN and RANA’s lifeblood is our partners and our people. I want to say thank you to each and every one of our partners. Whether it is Ahaki’s work to power networked advocacy in Uganda; Swasti’s catalytic approach to health advocacy; or the partnership of Four PAWS, Spark Street Advisors, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention, the Elders, and the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board on the pandemic agreement negotiations, the combined relentless advocacy efforts of our partners and individuals in our orbit energises me every day. Over the past year, RANA partners are on the rise, we have brilliant biosecurity partners, and are proud to have helped establish the MFF Hub in Brussels — our Year Five Impact Report expands on these vital partnerships. The potential we have when we come together and put our brands and egos at the door is truly mind blowing.
From 2020 to 2025, much has changed, but our work together, as a network of advocates, is more important than ever, as we evolve to build the resilience of people, communities, and countries to tackle existing and future threats.
I would like to take the opportunity to give a particular shout out to my nine colleagues that make up PAN’s core team. Aminata in Freetown, Aggrey in Nairobi, Zander, Verity, Charlotte and Thoko in the U.K., Courtney in New York, Autumn in Los Angeles, and Hanna in Seattle. We are supported on particular projects, at particular times by Ramadan in Istanbul, Rafael in Geneva, and Anamaria, Vale and Kasia in Brussels, along with our Co-founders and advisors around the world and the brilliant team at Panorama Global. This family of street fighting advocates makes me proud to be PAN.
In partnership, in solidarity, and in deep gratitude for five rollercoaster years.
Eloise Todd
Executive Director & Co-founder, Pandemic Action Network
This letter is part of PAN’s Year Five Impact Report — Building Tomorrow’s Resilience, Today.