G20 needs to help in increasing available funds to WHO: Mandaviya

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Friday that G20 needs to help in increasing available funds to WHO, primarily funds which are not earmarked, besides supporting ongoing multi stakeholder mechanisms such as GAVI, CEPI, ACT-A with specific focus on equitable and affordable access.

Addressing the G20 Joint Finance and Health Ministers' Meeting through video conferencing, Mandaviya said that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the importance of International Health Regulations and the need for strengthening global health governance.

The G20 Joint Finance and Health Ministers' Meeting was held on 'Concrete proposals to strengthen global health financing governance'.

The Minister said, "Presently, several parallel proposals are being discussed in multiple forums including IPPPR's Global Health Threats Council, IHR review, need for a framework, convention or any other instrument on pandemic management and G20 proposal of Joint Health and Financing Task force to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response".

He added that India proposes that the centrality of WHO needs to be maintained in the health arena while supporting the proposal for a Joint Health and Financing Task force.

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

He underlined the need to synchronise these multilateral initiatives amongst member states as per their local context at the national level.

He said, "In a pandemic no one is safe until everyone is safe. In this context, I quote our Prime Minister Modi ji when he mentioned that everyone's support, everyone's development, everyone's trust and everyone's efforts are vital for success".