Dear Leaders of the G7, the G20, BRICS and of all nations,
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We write to you together, from Geneva and from Brasília, with one shared conviction: that the world must finish what it started, and that you can help it do so.
We begin not with an institution or an annex, but with a memory the whole world shares. Not so long ago, our hospitals overflowed. Families said goodbye to the people they loved through glass, or by telephone, or not at all. Children lost grandparents. Doctors and nurses, exhausted beyond anything we had a right to ask of them, kept going anyway. Estimates from WHO and others put the lives lost at up to twenty million. Humanity promised itself, in the rawness of that grief, that it would not fac
A little over a year ago, the world kept the first part of that promise. After the deadliest pandemic in a century, the nations of the world chose cooperation over division and adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement to strengthen how countries can work together to prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics. In a divided world, that outcome was not to be taken for granted. It was an act of hope, and an act of faith in one another. We write to you now because that hope is not yet fulfilled, and be
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One piece remains. To respond to future pandemics in time, countries must be able to quickly identify pathogens with pandemic potential and share their genetic information and material so scientists can develop tools: the tests, the treatments, the vaccines that decide who lives and who does not. The system that makes this possible, fairly and on equal footing, is the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing annex. It is the last piece of the puzzle, not only for the Pandemic Agreement but for everyt
We will not pretend the road has been easy. When Member States closed their most recent session on the first of May, they had made real progress, but agreed that more time was needed. The hardest questions, including how the benefits of shared pathogens are defined and shared, how the system is governed, and how equity is guaranteed on equal footing, are difficult for a reason. They are the very questions that went unanswered last time, while people who could have been protected were not. The wo
Negotiators will meet again from 6 to 17 July. We believe in them, and we have seen their dedication up close. But we also know there are moments when good people, doing their best around a negotiating table, need their leaders to lift their eyes to the horizon. This is one of those moments, and it is yours.
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So we come to you, plainly, with three requests.
First, political will at the highest level. The remaining issues will not be solved by technical effort alone. They need the clear signal that only a head of government can give: that finishing this annex is a national priority, and that your negotiators may reach for consensus with courage rather than caution. Solidarity is our best immunity, but solidarity has to be chosen, and it has to be chosen at the top. We know, too, that you may be asked if the Pandemic Agreement compromises state sover
Second, a spirit of equity. The PABS system rests on a simple, fair bargain: those who share dangerous pathogens quickly must be able to trust that the vaccines and treatments born from that sharing will reach their own people too. Every one of us has a stake on both sides of it. When Brazil held the G20 presidency in 2024, it led the G20 to recognize, for the first time, inequality as a driver of pandemics. This is not charity, and it is not only conscience. It is also strategy: PABS exists to
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