Health for the Hardest to Reach: The Global Health Architecture (GHA) of Today

Session hosted by GSU and IAHPC

The World Health Organization (WHO) is at the centre of a defining moment for global health governance. Following a decision by the WHO Executive Board, the Director-General has been mandated to design a Member State-led process that consolidates ongoing reform discussions — including those driven by the United Nations’ UN80 Reform Initiative — into a single, transparent, and time-bound framework aimed at restructuring how the global health system is governed, financed, and coordinated. For civil society organizations engaged in Geneva-based health governance, the process represents both an opportunity and a risk. While civil society has been formally named alongside regional bodies, development banks, and philanthropic foundations, as actors to be engaged in shaping the proposal, the terms of that engagement — and whether it will be substantive or ceremonial — remain to be determined. A proposal was submitted to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly as a first step. What follows raises core questions at the heart of G2H2’s mandate: Who holds power in the reformed architecture, whether corporate and philanthropic actors are appropriately bounded, and whether the outcome genuinely advances democratic governance and health equity — or consolidates the influence of actors whose interests diverge from those of the people most affected by global health decisions?

Exporting High Medicine Prices. US Pressure on Europe and Implications for Global Acces

Session organized by PHM

In recent years, particularly following policy debates during the Donald Trump administration, the United States has increasingly sought to address high domestic medicine prices. However, rather than adopting structural policy reforms commonly used in Europe—such as price regulation, centralised negotiation, and Health Technology Assessment (HTA)—the preferred posture of the US administration has been to externalise the issue.

European countries, including France, Germany, and Spain, have tried to check medicine prices through public policy mechanisms. Institutions such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK assess the value and cost-effectiveness of medicines, enabling governments to negotiate or reject prices that do not align with public health priorities.

In this context, there have been growing indications of pressure on European governments and institutions to raise medicine prices or alter their pricing and reimbursement frameworks. These include reported diplomatic engagements with countries such as France, tensions involving the UK’s NICE, changes to policy in Spain and broader debates on pricing and transparency raised across Europe.

Policy tools such as Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) pricing further reflect an attempt to reshape international price benchmarks. However, taken together, these developments raise concerns that, rather than reducing high prices domestically, they risk increasing prices in Europe.

This dynamic is understood by some stakeholders as a form of trade pressure, in which trade and diplomatic leverage are used to influence other countries’ domestic health policy choices.

This webinar aims to critically examine whether current U.S. approaches to medicine pricing represent a shift from domestic reform toward external pressure on other countries, and to explore the implications of this shift for global access to medicines.

From India to the World: PABS Negotiations, Public Pharma and the Future of Equitable Global Health Governance

Session organized by  Medico International 

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly shaped debates on equity in access and distribution of health technologies, both during the crisis and in its aftermath, including the adoption of the Pandemic Agreement at WHO in May 2025 and the ongoing negotiations on its Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) mechanism. India, as one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical producers played a central role during the pandemic, including through the large-scale production of the Covishield vaccine and its prominent position in debates on a TRIPS waiver.

This webinar provides a timely opportunity to present and discuss emerging evidence and perspectives on PABS negotiations within the broader multilateral health landscape.

The session will spotlight insights from the forthcoming study “India’s Global Health Role in the Post-Covid Order” by Satya Sivaraman. The study examines India’s pharmaceutical policies and global health engagement, with a focus on the Pandemic Agreement and PABS negotiations, while also reflecting on persistent gaps in technology transfer and regional production capacities, especially in Africa. Lauren Paremoer will contextualize the India case study linking it to the broader global health discourse and the current negotiations on the PA

Speakers

• Satya Sivaraman – Independent journalist and researcher based in India, with extensive experience covering public health, pharmaceutical policy, and global health governance. His current work examines India’s evolving role in the post-COVID global health order.
• Lauren Paremoer – Senior researcher and health policy scholar affiliated with the People’s Health Movement (PHM) South Africa, specializing in global health governance, equity, and the political economy of health systems. Her work critically engages with multilateral processes and access to medicines debates

“Feeding Profits, Starving People: How Food Financialization Is Eating The Planet” | New Report Launch

Session organized by SID

At a time of overlapping global crises—rising costs, instability, and deepening inequalities—food is increasingly treated as a financial asset. And when uncertainty grows, so does speculation.
Our new report shows how financial actors and corporate concentration are capitalizing on these crises—driving price volatility, worsening hunger, and weakening food sovereignty worldwide.
Land, agriculture, and even basic staples are no longer just sources of nourishment. They’ve become vehicles for profit, often at the expense of smallholders, local communities, and long-term resilience.
This is exactly why this report matters now.
It calls for urgent systemic reforms: curbing food speculation, reshaping global finance and trade rules, and supporting agroecological models rooted in equity, sustainability, and local control.
Food is a human right, not a financial asset.

Speakers:

• Andrea Baranes — Fondazione Finanza Etica
• Bethule Nyamambi — Trust Africa
• Jeff Conant — Friends of the Earth USA, DADA Alliance
• Theiva Lingam — Friends of the Earth International (FoEI)

Moderator: Sabrina Masinjila — Society for International Development (SID)

Resources

Feeding Profits, Starving People: How Food Financialization Is Eating The Planet

The World Bank’s private sector arm investments in health – what is at stake in the review of the IFC’s sustainability framework

Session organized by Wemos

Over the past few years, various alarming reports have been published about investments in private healthcare by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank. These reports, by Oxfam International, Bloomberg and others, show that hospitals in which the IFC has invested in countries including India, Kenya and Nigeria, deny emergency care to patients who cannot pay upfront, charge extravagant fees driving people into poverty and push staff to provide unnecessary care in order to drive up profits. The research also indicates that IFC-appointed board members at these hospitals have not exerted the oversight they should have, after having been informed about the abuses.

This year, the IFC’s Environmental and Social Performance Standards are undergoing a review, offering an opportunity to push for safeguards that ensure health equity and public accountability. In autumn, a public consultation is scheduled to be held, through which civil society around the world can provide inputs into the review. Oxfam and partners have been working on a comprehensive analysis of the different performance standards of the IFC’s sustainability framework, and formulating recommendations to strongly embed health equity into the framework.

International migration of health workers and the crisis of care: what is to be done?

Session organized by PSI

According to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, the world is far behind in meeting the Sustainable Development Goal of “Universal Health Coverage” by 2030, which is just over three years away. More than half of the global population) still lack access to the essential health services they need. And between 80% and 90% of the 4.6 billion people thus concerned are in the Global South.
One of the main reasons for this is the global shortage of health and care workers, who constitute the backbone of healthcare delivery. Yet, international migration of health and care workers essentially involves the migration of skilled healthcare workers from these countries to wealthier countries in the Global North.
The shortfall of healthcare workers required for UHC by 2030 is 11 million. And this might very well be an underestimate. But more worrisome is that this shortfall is markedly skewed. The countries and regions of the world with the greatest disease burden have significantly higher proportions of this shortage. For example, Africa, which has 19.09% of the world population but bears a quarter of the global disease burden and over three quarters of public health emergencies worldwide, has a shortfall of 6.5 million healthcare workers out of the total of 11 million.
One reason for this situation is that wealthier countries of the Global North can draw on health and care workers from the Global South. A care arbitrage emerges, enabling wealthier nations to achieve substantial cost savings, being what they would otherwise have spent on domestic training for healthcare professionals.
A report issued by the British All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health and Security in March 2026, for example, noted that the NHS saves up to £14bn every year by recruiting doctors and nurses from the Global South. To address this injustice, the APPG has called for co-investment in which Britain (and we could add; other countries in the Global North who similarly benefit from international migration) should invest in training more doctors, nurses and other health professionals in the Global South.
Others have also pointed out that the problem is much more complex. The health and care workforce in Africa and other developing countries/regions is being depleted by outward labour migration. But we are also witnessing a large number of unemployed health professionals e.g., up to 700,000 in Africa.
The WHO has tried to address the situation in several ways. It has redlined countries with its Health Workforce Support and Safeguard List. The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel which was adopted in 2010 and reviewed for the third time last year, also sets a universal framework for fair and ethical health worker migration. These are progressive steps. But, with the (in)actions of states, these might have only made a dent in addressing the problem.

Questions for the discourse:

The webinar will examine the issues by addressing the following questions:

• To what extent has the WHO Code of Practice been able to promote the fair and ethical international recruitment of health and care workers? How could this be improved upon? What are the challenges?
• How can co-investment help to increase training and as well decent work for health and care workers in the countries of origin?
• What are the root causes of the paradox of shortage and surplus of health and care workers in the global South and particularly so in Africa?
• How do migrant health workers experience the situation and what do they want policy makers and all other players to do to safeguard them in countries of destination?

Speakers

• Dr Agya MAHAT, Technical Officer, Health Workforce, WHO
• Margaret CAFFREY, Technical Director, Health Systems Strengthening, GHP ( TBC)
• Dr Eleanor HUTCHINSON, Professor, Anthropology and Public Health, LSHTM
• Ananya BASU PSI Asia Pacific Health Organizer/Focal point, migration

Rising against war economies, for life, health and climate justice

Session organized by PHM

Ongoing wars, occupation, genocide, and military violence are shaping people’s lives across the world, from Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon to Yemen, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These conflicts are sustained by global systems of militarisation, including Western military alliances, arms flows, and direct interventions. The ongoing Genocide on Palestine erased entire families, destroyed communities. In Lebanon and Iran, bombardment and escalation have devastated infrastructure and civilian life. The long-standing blockade on Cuba continues to restrict access to essential resources and medicines. Across these contexts, health systems are repeatedly targeted or collapse under pressure, leaving people without care while trauma and environmental damage scar communities for generations.

Meanwhile militarisation is accelerating across Europe and the North Atlantic. EU institutions are redirecting public resources toward defence structures such as the European Defence Fund and PESCO, embedding military priorities across policy areas. This is reinforced by expanding NATO spending targets, rising toward up to 5% of GDP by 2035, diverting resources away from health systems, social protection, and climate action. A global arms trade worth tens of billions annually, within a trillion-dollar military economy, relies on systemic corruption and close ties between governments and private contractors. This model concentrates wealth among shareholders while limiting states’ ability to meet people’s needs.

Yet across Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Congo, Cuba, Colombia and beyond, communities continue to resist military aggression and imperialist war economies through protest, survival, solidarity, and demands for dignity. At the same time, states in the Global South, including South Africa, Malaysia, and Colombia, are speaking out against genocide, war crimes, and militarised global governance, calling for accountability, ceasefires, and a shift toward justice, health, and climate stability.

Objectives

The session aims to:

1. Expose the health impacts of militarisation, including its effects on health systems, social determinants of health, and environmental sustainability
2. Analyse militarisation as a political-economic model, linking policy developments, global arms trade dynamics, and austerity measures
3. Strengthen civil society narratives and advocacy, connecting peace, health, and climate justice movements
4. Identify pathways toward demilitarisation, including policy alternatives and resource reallocation strategies