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Global experts call on Indonesia to lead world to better pandemic readiness
Experts speaking at a webinar on pandemic preparedness have urged Indonesia to use its G20 presidency to push for more multilateral cooperation and financing in global health security.
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Health workers vaccinate employees for COVID-19 on March 9, 2022 at a factory in Cikarang, West Java. (Antara/Fakhri Hermansyah)
Experts from across the world have called on Indonesia, as the holder of this year’s Group of 20 presidency, to lead the global effort in preparing for future pandemics through more multilateral financial cooperation schemes and the establishment of a global health fund.
Following mass vaccination efforts by governments around the globe that has seen some 11.6 billion doses administered worldwide, many countries – including Indonesia – have started gradually easing their COVID-19 curbs to restore a sense of normalcy.
However, experts said recovery was still uneven across the globe, with many low and middle income countries yet to vaccinate the majority of their populations. They also pointed out that more work needed to be done to prepare the world for future pandemics.
Singaporean Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who is cochair of the G20 HighLevel Independent Panel (HLIP) on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, said the underlying problem of the world’s underpreparedness to deal with pandemics was the minimal multilateral effort in financing global health security.
Speaking at a webinar held on Wednesday by the Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta, Shanmugaratnam said that global health security financing largely relied on small-scale bilateral aid and philanthropic contributions.
“A paradigm shift [is needed] to think of global health security not as aid for other countries, but as an investment in global public goods. This means we are not just investing to help other countries, but we are also investing in each country's interest,” he said.
According to the G20 HLIP’s estimates, global health security needs US$15 billion per year, roughly double the current figure, to consistently and adequately fund the World Health Organization (WHO) and other relevant international institutions.
