Text-based negotiations on the final piece missing from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Pandemic Agreement will begin in November – and “relevant stakeholders’ will be allowed to observe them for the first time as a “pilot”.

This was resolved at the second meeting of the WHO Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), which concluded last Friday evening.

The Group of Equity proposed to the IGWG that the negotiations be opened up to “relevant stakeholders’, groups that have been formally recognised by the WHO. Several stakeholders have also made this call throughout the Pandemic Agreement negotiations.

Countering misinformation

In its submission to IGWG last week, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) said: “The secrecy that surrounds negotiations on the WHO pandemic treaty undermines trust in the WHO, and enables misinformation to have more impact.”

It called on the WHO to follow the lead of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and webcast all plenary sessions.

“The WHO could do better and allow the sharing of information from informals under the Chatham House rule, so that the public has information about what issues divide negotiators, and why,” KEI added.

There are over 200 stakeholders, according to a WHO list. These include intergovernmental agencies, such as the United Nations, African Union, Pan-American Health Organization and the South Centre. 

Groups with observer status, including the vaccine alliance, Gavi, and the Global Fund, non-state actors in official relations with the WHO and other stakeholders recognised by the WHO can also attend. This opens the door to groups such as the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), KEI, Medicines Patent Pool, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA).

Many of these groups have followed the pandemic agreement negotiations since the start and have frequently asked to observe the actual negotiations, rather than simply being allowed to attend and address plenaries.

WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the decision, saying that this would “give ownership to all stakeholders” when he addressed the end of the meeting.

Describing last week’s discussions as “substantive and positive”, Tedros said this gave him hope that the talks will be concluded by the deadline of next May.

The meeting discussed the draft outline of elements that need to be addressed by the outstanding annex on a Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) System, including operation, access, benefit-sharing and governance, scope and use of terms, according to its report.

After a series of informal meetings in the week of 6 October, the IGWG Bureau will prepare a draft of the annex, “taking into account all elements, building on the draft outline of elements and taking into consideration written submissions by IGWG Members, inputs received during the second meeting of the IGWG, and informal discussions”, according to the report.

The actual negotiations will begin later at the third IGWG meeting from 3-7 November and continue at the final meeting of the year from 1-5 December.