The Pandemic Treaty, the Pandemic Fund, and the Global Commons: our scepticism

Abstract

The call to strengthen global health governance against future outbreaks through a binding treaty on pandemics has attracted global attention and opinion. Yet, few of these perspectives have reflected the voices from early career global health professionals in Africa. We share our perspectives on the Pandemic Treaty, and specifically our scepticism on the limitations of the current top-down approach of the treaty, and the need for the treaty to centre equity, transparency and fairness to ensure equitable and effective cooperation in response to global health emergencies. We also highlight the challenges intergovernmental organisations for health faced in coordinating nation states during the COVID-19 crisis and how a Pandemic Treaty would address these challenges. We argue that lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic provide a critical opportunity to strengthen regional institutions in Africa—particularly in a multipolar world with huge disparities in power and resources. However, addressing these challenges and achieving this transformation may not be easy. Fiscal space in many countries remains constrained now more than ever. New tools such as the Pandemic Fund should be designed in ways that consider the specific needs and capacities of countries. Therefore, strengthening countries’ capacities overall requires an increase in domestic investment. This paper calls for wider structural reforms such as debt restructuring among other tools to strengthen countries’ capacities.