Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya urges G20 to increase funding to WHO

Mandaviya was addressing the G20 joint finance and health ministers’ virtual meeting, and said in a pandemic no one is safe until everyone is safe. He was part of a discussion on concrete proposals to strengthen global health financing governance.

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday urged the G20 to increase funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) to strengthen global health financing and its governance for better pandemic preparedness.

“The G20 needs to increase available funds to WHO, primarily [funds] which are not earmarked, besides supporting ongoing multi-stakeholder mechanisms such as GAVI and CEPI with specific focus on equitable and affordable access,” he said.

Mandaviya was addressing the G20 joint finance and health ministers’ virtual meeting, and said in a pandemic no one is safe until everyone is safe. He was part of a discussion on concrete proposals to strengthen global health financing governance.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to fore the importance of international health regulations and the need for strengthening global health governance,” the minister said.

Several parallel proposals are being discussed at multiple global forums on the need for a framework, convention or any other instrument on pandemic management. The minister said India is extending support to the present proposal for a joint health and financing task force. However, India has proposed that the centrality of the WHO needs to be maintained in the health arena.

India also proposes that while multiple entities with overlapping mandates are delving into pandemic preparedness and response, a clearly defined complementarity of all such initiatives has to be seamlessly woven to create a global health emergency management architecture, the minister said.

There is also a need to synchronise these multilateral initiatives among member states as per their local context at national level, he said.