On 17 May, the UK and South Africa co-hosted a satellite session of the Global Partnerships Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, focused on Reimagining the Multilateral Health System. The event brought together Health Ministers as well as leaders and representatives of global and regional institutions, philanthropies and civil society.
Participants recognised the global health gains to date which the multilateral health system has helped deliver, but were clear that the system has become duplicative and fragmented and that it is now necessary to reimagine it to meet changing global health needs. The system needed reimagining based on the essential functions it needs to provide, with the global level of the system reshaped to focus on functions which can only be performed effectively at that level. There was a strong sense of urgency and ambition, with clear calls for a system which is sustainable, fit for the future, strengthens trust, has the goal of equity at its core and which shifts the power to regions and countries. The shared objective is a system which supports countries to advance their own priorities, which shifts from a narrow disease-focussed response to sustainable, systemic resilience, and which empowers all countries to deliver better health outcomes for all their people, particularly the most vulnerable.
Participants acknowledged the many initiatives on multilateral health reform which have done excellent work in recent years, and recognised that there was now an urgent need to come together to turn ambition into action. For this reason, and given the importance of the central role of the World Health Organization (WHO), participants welcomed the proposed WHO-hosted Joint Process, and collectively committed to giving it their full support, working in a spirit of modern and inclusive partnership, over the year ahead.
