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The UN High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR) will be convened by the President of the United Nations General Assembly on 20 September 2023, the second day of the general debate of the Assembly at its 78th session. The overall theme of the HLM will be “Making the world safer: Creating and maintaining political momentum and solidarity for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response. The meeting will consist of an opening segment, a plenary segment for general discussion, two multi-stakeholder panels, and a brief closing segment. The themes for the two panels will be: Ensuring equity through governance and accountability for PPPR by utilizing multi-sectoral coordination at all levels; and Ensuring equity through capacity building for PPPR and harnessing timely, sustainable and innovative financing and investment.
This HLM is an opportunity for Member States to prevent and prepare for pandemics and their consequences, using an approach that involves all government sectors.
The meeting was called for in September 2022, in recognition that the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated “serious shortcomings at the country, regional and global levels in preparedness for, timely and effective prevention and detection of, and response to potential health emergencies, including in the capacity and resilience of health systems, indicating the need to better prepare for future health emergencies”.
The outcome will be a political declaration that aims at “mobilizing political will at the national, regional and international levels for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response”.
H.E. Omar Hilale, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United Nations, and H.E. Gilad Erdan, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations have been selected as the meeting co-facilitators. They have a critical role in the meeting preparations and have been facilitating Member States’ negotiations of the Political Declaration.
As part of the preparatory process for the HLM, a multistakeholder hearing was organized on 8 and 9 May 2023 at the UN in New York. The summary of the hearing is accessible here
The President of the UN General Assembly convened this meeting to recognise the vast impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health systems and societies worldwide. Diabetes remains a strong risk factor for adverse COVID-19 outcomes. People with diabetes experience a substantially greater likelihood of hospitalisation and death due to COVID-19 infections. Additionally, strict confinement measures limit their access to healthcare and negatively impact diabetes management. These adverse consequences and challenges highlight the need to prioritise people with diabetes as a high-risk group in future pandemics.
At this meeting, Member States and civil society discussed measures to prevent and prepare for future pandemics using a health-in-all policies approach. The meeting outcome was a political declaration aimed at mobilising national, regional and international political will.
Learn more and access the political declaration here.
