Advocacy Update

Health Impact Investment Platform

The World Health Organization (WHO) and multilateral development banks kicked off the Health Impact Investment Platform, a US $1.5 billion primary health financing platform, on the margins of the UN Summit of the Future in New York this week. The fund will develop primary health care (PHC) improvement plans for 15 low- and middle-income countries, prioritizing the needs of the most vulnerable and underserved populations. The European Investment Bank and WHO signed an initial contribution of €10 million to kickstart the implementation of the investment plans.

We encourage advocates to call on other multilateral organizations to invest and on governments to collaborate in the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of country PHC plans. Learn more.

End TB Now Act

The End TB Now Act passed the Senate (S.288) via unanimous consent on September 19. The act is a comprehensive commitment to make tuberculosis elimination a foreign assistance priority for the United States. Advocates should urge leadership of the House of Representatives to take immediate action and vote in support of the House version of the bill (H.R.1776) and encourage the president to sign it into law as a signal of the U.S. government’s continued leadership towards eliminating the disease.

Pandemic Agreement

The 11th meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB11) wrapped up two week’s worth of meetings last week as negotiations for a pandemic agreement continue. While many issues still need to be resolved and key challenges remain, Member States decided to ramp up efforts to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. They have agreed to schedule a series of informal meetings prior to INB12 in November in order to accelerate progress on remaining issues, including the legal architecture of the agreement, prevention, technology transfer, pathogen access and benefit sharing, and supply chain. We will continue to track progress of the negotiations and keep the community updated. In the meantime, you can learn more here.

AMR HLM

The UN High-Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance will take place on September 26th on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The theme of the meeting is Investing in the Present and Securing our Future Together: Accelerating Multi-Sectoral Global, Regional, and National Actions to Address Antimicrobial Resistance. The goal of the meeting is securing political commitments to new targets in order to holistically tackle the threat of AMR. For additional context, we encourage you to read the AMR brief from the most recent Global Health Briefing Book. You can read the AMR political declaration here.