By Joy Omagha Idam | Weekenders Magazine
NEW YORK — The applause was loud at the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. After weeks of tense negotiations, 153 countries voted to adopt a new Political Declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR).
Only three voted against. Two abstained.
For the Friends of the High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, a coalition of global health leaders, it was a welcome show of multilateral will. But their message after the vote was blunt: adoption is not achievement.
“We applaud the adoption as an important marker of multilateral commitment to make the world safer from pandemic threats,” the Friends said in a statement issued October 12, 2026. “Leaders must now act to turn words and commitments into action.”
The declaration was the outcome of the High-Level Meeting on PPPR held on September 25, and its adoption in the General Assembly was seen as a test of whether the world has learned anything seven years after COVID-19 shattered lives and economies.
A WORLD STILL UNPREPARED
The declaration itself does not pretend that all is well.
It recognises that the world is still insufficiently prepared for the next pandemic threat and underlines critical areas that must be fixed. It highlights the importance of the International Health Regulations and the Pandemic Agreement, and the urgent need to conclude the Agreement’s Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) Annex.
It also recognises the value of a One Health approach — linking human, animal and environmental health — and prevention at source by tackling the drivers of outbreaks. It calls for prioritising equity and promoting access to vaccines, tests and treatments, and for such tools to be available within the first 100 days of a pandemic threat.
Crucially, it acknowledges what many health financing experts have long warned: an estimated $15 billion annual gap in preparedness financing, the work of the Pandemic Fund, and the limits of a fragmented and under-funded system.
But for the Friends, that acknowledgement is not enough.
“The political declaration contains few concrete, measurable or time-bound commitments,” the group warned.
“PANDEMIC RISKS ARE NOT WAITING”
The Friends were emphatic that the threats are not theoretical.
“Pandemic risks are not waiting,” the group said. “A rapidly growing Ebola outbreak, two mpox emergencies since 2022 and an Andes hantavirus outbreak have all required multinational responses. H5N1 is still infecting farm animals and wildlife, and climate change and biodiversity loss are driving new threats.”
Their question was direct: “Which political leaders will now step forward to turn that urgency into policy change and investment in countries and regions?”
It is a question that resonates far beyond New York. In Nigeria and across Africa, memories of vaccine inequity during COVID-19, fragile health systems and the scramble for diagnostics remain fresh.
For global health watchers, the vote count tells one story; the financing gap tells another.
SEVEN YEARS AFTER COVID-19
The frustration was captured by the Right Honourable Helen Clark, Co-Chair of The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and a member of The Elders, both co-convenors of the Friends.
“It’s almost seven years since COVID-19 emerged and caused worldwide devastation to lives and economies,” Clark said. “Action to ensure that this does not happen again is still too slow and not concrete or ambitious enough.”
She called on countries to do better and to work together with the urgency that pandemic threats demand.
“This means finding a way through the impasse to agree the PABS Annex by May. In the meantime, it is vital to implement provisions of the Pandemic Agreement. Delays will only increase our collective risks,” she said.
The PABS Annex — which would govern how pathogens are shared and how benefits like vaccines and treatments are distributed — remains the unfinished business of the Pandemic Agreement. Without it, experts fear, the world risks repeating the inequity of the COVID-19 years.
WHAT MUST HAPPEN NEXT
The Friends welcomed the decision to review collective progress against the declaration in about two years’ time, during the 83rd session of the General Assembly. But they said they will not wait quietly until then.
“The co-convenors and members of the Friends will hold countries accountable for real progress against the gaps the declaration lays out, and for bringing the commitments on paper to life,” the statement said.
According to the group, real progress must include four non-negotiables:
“The Pandemic Agreement entering into force;”
“All countries having multisectoral plans for PPPR;”
“Successful mechanisms to ensure sustained, sufficient, and reliable preparedness and surge financing;”
And “Measurable progress on investments in research, development and manufacturing of pandemic and outbreak tools in every region.”
It is a checklist that shifts the debate from what was promised in New York to what will be built in capitals, laboratories, factories and health facilities around the world.
The Friends also thanked the co-facilitators of the declaration — Armenia and Rwanda — the President of the General Assembly, the World Health Organization, and all 153 Member States who voted for the declaration.
But the applause, they insist, must be short.
Because while the declaration has been adopted, the next outbreak will not wait for financing to be secured, for factories to be built, or for political will to catch up.
For now, the world has a declaration. What it needs next is delivery. We pray everything goes well.