About
In December 2021 the World Health Assembly (WHA) held a special session, (the second ever since WHO’s founding in 1948) and agreed to develop a ‘WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic preparedness’.
This decision establishes an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) to draft and negotiate the instrument. The INB held its first sessions in February and March 2022 to elect bureau officers and agree on working methods and timelines.
All World Health Assembly (WHA) members are members of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB). The INB bureau – whose role is to guide the negotiations – is composed of the Netherlands and South Africa (co-chairs), Brazil, Egypt, Japan, and Thailand (vice-chairs).
During its first two meetings, the INB agreed on a tentative timeline, methods of work, and modalities of stakeholder engagement.
Development
The current plan is to finalise the ‘instrument’ by May 2024. The INB will work through:
- Plenary INB sessions: these are open to all Member states plus the UN, Observers, Non-state Actors in official relations with WHO, and other stakeholders identified by the INB itself; which would include civil society, community representatives, and individual experts. These will be key meetings where the INB will discuss and agree upon the substantive elements of the treaty, the modalitites of participation of other stakeholders, and the kind of instrument that will be negotiated. Later the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body sessions will be dedicated to negotiating the text of the instrument. Decisions will be taken by consensus.
- INB Subgroups: the INB subgroups are made up of Member states and are responsible for discussing specific topics/elements of the instruments. The INB subgroups have not been set up yet.
- Regional Committees: the regional Committees are made up of Member states.
Public Hearings: public hearings are open to all actors – including civil society not in official relations with WHO. The public hearings are dedicated to collecting input from a broad range of stakeholders.
More information on the development of the accord can be found in the pandemic accord timeline.
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