Global Health and Foreign Policy : Addressing Global Health Challenges in the Foreign Policy Space

A/RES/78/280View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 125 Global health and foreign policy, published in 2024.

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 subjects

Disease Prevention Foreign Policy Health Policy Health Services Pandemics Public Health Vaccines

What’s in this document?

33 operative paragraphs

Urges Member States to continue to consider health issues in the formulation of foreign policy;

Encourages Member States to strengthen regional and international cooperation, multilateralism, global solidarity, coordination and health governance, towards the progressive realization of the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health for all, without distinction of any kind;

Calls upon Member States to continue to contribute actively to the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to draft and negotiate a legally binding World Health Organization convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, as well as the amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) to achieve a timely completion of both processes by the seventy-seventh session of the World Health Assembly in May 2024;

Urges Member States to cooperate, including through technical and financial support to capacity-building and access to technology in acknowledgement of their different levels of development and capacities, to ensure that all States, in particular developing countries, can effectively implement measures to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics and other health emergencies, in accordance with the International Health Regulations (2005);

Also urges Member States to commit to strengthening women’s full, effective and meaningful participation in leadership and decision-making processes in pandemics and other health emergencies at all levels, and to mainstream a gender perspective into all policies and programmes, including in budgetary responses;

Calls upon Member States, as appropriate, to establish stronger regional capacities for research and development, manufacturing, regulation and procurement of needed tools for equitable and effective access to vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and essential supplies, as well as for clinical trials, and to increase global supply through, inter alia, facilitating transfer of technology within the framework of relevant multilateral agreements, while strengthening their leadership, commitment and support in promoting the establishment and strengthening of quality and sustainable local production of medicines and other health technologies that follows good manufacturing practices;

Urges Member States, where appropriate, based on the national context, to apply a holistic approach in strengthening local and regional production by considering, for example, promoting research and development, transparency of markets for medicines and other health products and technologies, strengthening of regulatory systems, access to sustainable and affordable financing, development of skilled human resources, access to technology transfer on mutually agreed terms for production and needs-based innovation, the aggregation of national and regional demand, and appropriate incentives for private sector investment;

Also urges Member States to ensure that digital health interventions complement and enhance health system functions through mechanisms such as accelerating exchange of information, recognizes that digital health interventions are not a substitute for functioning health systems, that there are significant limitations to what digital health is able to address, and that it can never replace the fundamental components needed by health systems such as health workforce, financing, leadership and governance, and access to essential medicines, and in this regard acknowledges the pressing need to address the major impediments that developing countries face in accessing and developing digital technologies, and highlights the importance of financing and capacity-building;

Urges the sustainable, affordable, fair, equitable, effective, efficient and timely access to medical countermeasures, including vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and other health products, and calls upon the World Health Organization to coordinate this with relevant partners, ensuring coherence with the ongoing discussions of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body and the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) in Geneva;

Calls upon Member States to remove trade barriers, strengthen supply chains, facilitate the movement of medical and public health goods, and diversify manufacturing capacities across regions, especially during pandemics and other health emergencies among and within countries;

Urges Member States to prioritize, by increasing or maintaining, as appropriate, domestic and international financing for health, to contribute to the sustainable financing of the multilateral system, including the World Health Organization consistent with decisions of the World Health Assembly, and to continue to support the planning of a World Health Organization investment round as part of a more predictably and sustainably financed Organization;

Encourages Member States to support the Pandemic Fund and in mobilizing additional external resources for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, including from new donors, and in helping countries to become more resilient to future pandemics and other health emergencies;

Calls upon the international community to mobilize the means necessary to support Africa’s efforts to prevent, prepare for and respond to outbreaks and epidemics that account for over 100 major public health emergency events annually;

Calls upon Member States to further implement and reinforce an integrated One Health approach that fosters cooperation and collaboration between the human health, animal health and plant health, as well as environmental and other relevant sectors, taking into account the relevant guidance recommended by the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Organization for Animal Health and United Nations Environment Programme, the Quadripartite organizations, and exchanging reliable information and scientific knowledge in a timely manner;

Calls for international cooperation and coordination in alignment with the Quadripartite One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022–2026), as appropriate, to support building regional, national and community-level capacities, including through the use of a One Health approach, and enable diagnostics of comprehensively addressing outbreaks in animals, the environment and humans during both inter-pandemic and pandemic times;

Calls upon Member States to strengthen the resilience of their health systems and universal health coverage as an integral part of their systems for effective and sustainable prevention, preparedness and response to pandemics and other public health and humanitarian emergencies, while maintaining access to essential health services, including routine immunization, or to quickly reinstate them after disruption;

Urges Member States to strengthen international cooperation to support efforts to finance, build, strengthen and maintain capacity in developing countries to improve water, sanitation, hygiene, waste and electricity services in health-care facilities;

Encourages Member States to accelerate action to address the global shortfall of health and care workers and encourage the development of nationally costed health workforce plans in accordance with the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030 by investing in education, employment and retention, strengthening the institutional capacity for health workforce governance, leadership, disaggregated data and planning, gender equality, addressing causes of health worker migration as well as departure from the health workforce and protecting and supporting all health and care workers from all forms of discrimination, harassment, violence and attacks, and to promote a decent and safe working environment and conditions at all times as well as ensure their physical and mental health;

Urges Member States to implement their commitment to provide better opportunities and decent work for women to ensure their role and leadership in the health sector, with a view to increasing the meaningful representation, engagement, participation and empowerment of all women in the workforce at all levels, including in decision-making positions, and take measures towards fair employment practices and eliminating biases against women, and address inequalities, including the gender pay gap, by appropriately remunerating health workers and care workers in the health sector, including community health workers;

Calls upon Member States to strengthen national efforts, international cooperation and global solidarity to accelerate the achievement of universal health coverage by 2030, with primary health care as a cornerstone, and leave no one behind to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all throughout the life course, while reducing catastrophic out-of-pocket health expenditure and eliminating impoverishment due to health-related expenses by 2030;

Also calls upon Member States to take measures to significantly reduce maternal, perinatal, neonatal, infant and child mortality and morbidity and increase access to quality health-care services for newborns, infants and children, as well as all women before, during and after pregnancy and childbirth, including through providing antenatal and postnatal care, sufficient numbers of skilled birth attendants and adequately supplied birthing facilities;

Urges timely, equitable and unhindered access to safe, affordable, effective and quality medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics and other health products and technologies as one of the fundamental elements for the full realization of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and the correspondent objectives of universal health coverage and health for all, without discrimination, with special attention to reaching those furthest behind first;

Urges Member States to ensure, by 2030, universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes, and ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development¹⁹ and the Beijing Platform for Action²⁰ and the outcome documents of their review conferences;

¹⁹Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5–13 September 1994 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex.

²⁰Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4–15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.

Also urges Member States to ensure safe, timely and unhindered access of humanitarian personnel and medical personnel responding to pandemics and other health emergencies, as well as their means of transport, supplies and equipment, and to support, facilitate and enable transportation and logistical supply lines, in order to allow such personnel to efficiently and safely perform their task of assisting affected populations, and in this regard also reaffirms the need to take the necessary measures to respect and protect such personnel, hospitals and other medical facilities consistent with international humanitarian law;

Encourages Member States to strengthen health literacy and address the negative impact of misinformation, disinformation and stigmatization on public health measures and people’s physical and mental health, including on social media platforms, and foster trust in health systems and vaccine confidence, particularly by promoting access to timely and accurate information;

Calls upon Member States to scale up investments for the tuberculosis response, research and innovation to reduce the number of people falling ill, including by incorporating lessons learned from the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and achieve the targets agreed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development²¹ and in the End TB Strategy;²²

²¹Resolution 70/1.

²²See World Health Organization, document WHA67/2014/REC/1, resolution 67.1.

Urges Member States to commit to strengthening research capacity and collaboration through improving tuberculosis research platforms and networks across the public and private sectors, noting platforms and networks such as the BRICS Tuberculosis Research Network in basic science, clinical research and development, including pre-clinical and clinical trials, as well as operational, qualitative and applied research, to advance effective tuberculosis prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care and actions on the economic and social determinants and impacts of the disease;

Calls upon Member States to commit to reinforcing actions and multilateral initiatives like the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Unitaid and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, including through outreach to the private sector and philanthropic entities with a mission to end ongoing health emergencies and health challenges, such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, neglected tropical diseases and other preventable diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries;

Also calls upon Member States to strengthen the meaningful engagement of parliaments, civil society, the educational system and local communities, young people, women and, as appropriate, girls in all aspects of the response to health challenges and health emergencies, to ensure that the response is equitable, inclusive, people-centred and promotes gender equality and respects human rights, including with regard to policymaking forums, planning, care delivery, and national multisectoral accountability and review mechanisms as appropriate, and increase and sustain investment for initiatives, in particular at the community level, and in line with national contexts;

Urges Member States to strengthen the capacity of health systems for monitoring and minimizing the public health impacts of climate change through adequate preventive measures, preparedness, timely response and effective management of natural disasters, and to develop health measures and integrate them into plans for adaptation to climate change as appropriate;

Invites the World Health Organization to continue to provide quality and effectively disseminated normative guidance and technical support to Member States, upon their request, in order to build capacity, strengthen health systems and prevention, preparedness and response to health emergencies, promote training, recruitment, development and retention of human resources for health systems and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms with a particular focus on developing countries, and notes with appreciation the creation of the World Health Organization Academy in this regard;

Requests the President of the General Assembly to convene, in 2025, within existing resources, a one-day high-level interactive dialogue on the social, economic and environmental determinants of health and to draft and circulate a summary of the meeting;

Requests the Secretary-General, in close collaboration with the Director General of the World Health Organization as well as with relevant international organizations, to report to the General Assembly at its seventy-ninth session, under the item entitled “Global health and foreign policy”, on improving international cooperation and multilateral efforts to address global health challenges and promote equity in health for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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