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Description
Increasingly constrained public spending, surging geopolitical tensions and armed conflict have created unprecedented challenges in addressing complex issues that require broad international collaboration. Paradoxically, this may present a genuine second chance for spurring global action on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Growing evidence suggests that existing conflicts have turbocharged environmental and human pathways spurring broader awareness in national security circles. The changed geopolitical landscape, shifts in domestic politics, and a growing consensus on the urgency of tackling climate change, offer opportunities for new political alliances. What strategies might now be available, in this context, to strengthen global political commitments?
The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks AMR in the top 10 public health threats facing humanity as antibiotics become less effective against increasingly resistant bacteria. Without effective antibiotics, many routine life-saving treatments, such as chemotherapy for cancer, or even surgery, will become deadlier than the disease they seek to treat; and minor common infections will become, once again, deadly. Tackling AMR is an issue of human rights, and mitigation requires collaborative and multi-stakeholder action; yet AMR remains an invisible killer.
Due to the urgent need to combat this global threat, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) is convening a second high-level meeting (HLM) on AMR on 26 September, co-chaired by the governments of Malta and Barbados. The goal is to adopt a new political declaration to guide the collective efforts of Member States and other relevant stakeholders. The eight commitments which came out of the first HLM on AMR in 2016 however remain underfunded.
Join us for a moderated panel discussion with lively audience participation to discuss the outcomes of the September UNGA high-level negotiations on AMR, and how policymakers, international organisations, patient organisations, and civil society can take action to support mitigation of this major global health risk.
Speakers
Welcome Remarks by Vinh-Kim Nguyen | Co-Director, Global Health Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute
- Damien Somé | External Affairs Manager, Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP)
- Richard Sullivan | Director, Institute of Cancer Policy and Co-Director of the Centre for Conflict & Health Research, King’s College London
Moderated by Nadya Wells | Senior Research Adviser, Global Health Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute
Organised by
The Global Health Centre's International Geneva Global Health Platform, and the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP).
