Statement on Zero Draft

Oxfam and the People’s Vaccine Alliance statement on the Zero draft of the WHO CA+

Release date: 15 February 2023

Delivered at the INB briefing on 15th February 2023:

I am speaking on behalf of Oxfam and the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of over 100 organisations worldwide.

We welcome the fact that the zero draft contains key principles for achieving a better and more equitable PPR framework, addressing critical issues on access to technologies.

First, however, we want to raise concerns about the ongoing discussions outside the INB on establishing a medical countermeasures platform.

We believe it undermines this inter-governmental process by running a parallel one on a major aspect of the INB work – equitable access – and allowing a select group of countries to decide on how to resolve an issue which is the subject of these negotiations.

On the zero draft itself we would like to raise 3 key points:

  1. The Accord language must oblige governments to take specific actions to ensure equity, otherwise it would be difficult to implement it in practice. It must include concrete commitments and practical mechanisms, obligations, requirements and enforceable measures, rather than being limited to promotions and encouragements.
  2. The draft proposes that critical public health interventions are based on the willingness of pharmaceutical companies to engage in voluntary mechanisms. These have proved to be insufficient during the current and previous pandemics. Therefore, the Accord must require governments to invest in R&D and manufacturing capacities and to condition public funding on sharing technology, knowledge and intellectual property with developers and manufacturers in the South.
  3. Equitable allocation of medical countermeasures cannot be achieved by reserving a 20% of products for 80% of the world’s population. Benefit sharing must include practical measures for sharing pathogens and data, products and profits from their sale. Allocation should be based on needs and population, not on the ability to pay high prices.

Finally, we hope for continued participation of civil society in the development of the Accord.

Thank you.”

Media contact

Joe Karp-Sawey, Senior Media Advisor, People’s Vaccine Alliance

[email protected]