Wilton Park and GBCHealth have partnered to host a series of dialogues which seek to reinvigorate the discussion and pave the way for a coherent, effective response to antimicrobial resistance.
Antimicrobial resistance is a global killer, causing over a million deaths a year globally and significant harmful economic and social impact. The world saw some improvement in the response following the UN Declaration in 2016, with various initiatives established to tackle the issue. What gains had been achieved were subsequently lost during the COVID-19 pandemic with AMR also losing its place as a political priority. As an enduring global threat, there is pressing need to reinvigorate the response to AMR, placing this back on the political agenda.
The complexity of AMR requires multi-sectoral responses which bring together different sectors and disciplines to develop and implement strategies and policies. The One Health approach provides a framework which outlines the importance of collective action, yet there remains a lack of clarity on what this approach means in practice and how to achieve policy coherence for AMR and accountability from the local to the global level.
Including AMR in a renewed pandemic preparedness agenda will be a pivotal first step. COVID-19 caught the world off guard and ill prepared. The health, social and economic devastation of COVID-19 must be a catalyst for meaningful change around pandemic preparedness and response. These discussions are underway at the global, regional, and national level. There is general acknowledgment that AMR must be included within a renewed pandemic preparedness agenda, yet how it is positioned within this remains open to debate.
By bringing together stakeholders from across the health, agriculture, food, and environment sectors, including policy makers, the private sector, academia and civil society, this four-part Wilton Park – GBC Health series will provide space for a diverse group of stakeholders to reflect on the current response to AMR and contribute to fresh thinking on how to reinvigorate the response in the years ahead. The series seeks to develop a roadmap for with clear actionable recommendations for contributions by different stakeholders to tackle the burden of AMR, to be presented at UNGA in 2024, building on the work of existing initiatives and collaborations
This first one-day hybrid roundtable convened a small group to explore the focus of future dialogues in this series, leveraging the opportunity in the build-up to the high-level meeting on AMR at UNGA 2024, To take up and further develop the ideas and recommendations stemming from the dialogues, later in 2023 a taskforce will be created with the goal of developing a policy paper to be presented at UNGA 2024.
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