Our world has changed drastically, and multilateral institutions and ways of working must also change. The G7 represents the world’s leading industrial countries. Its members want to be recognised for a commitment to democracy, the rule of law, economic prosperity, and working collectively to solve global problems. Even so, in 2022 the G7 stands at a crossroad. One path involves the G7 stepping up to provide leadership at a critical point in time and taking definitive action to tackle the challenges our international community confronts from an irrevocably altered geopolitical environment, a war in Europe, the certainty of future pandemics, and a shifting climate. The other path involves the G7 being increasingly sidelined, its legitimacy continually challenged, its multilateral efforts impeded, and growing skepticism about its members’ motivations and agendas.
To meet the global health challenges ahead, we propose the G7 resolutely pursues the first path, actively taking up its global responsibility through the development and adoption of a G7 Global Health Compact 2030 that proactively pursues a transformative agenda informed by democratic values, equity, inclusion, sustained investment, accountability and global solidarity structures. There is an urgent need for new measures, arrangements and approaches that will better prepare the world for the future. The G7 Global Health Compact 2030 must be embedded within an unwavering commitment to multilateralism, the SDGs, determined support to the World Health Organization, and swift, unified action, starting with the implementation of already agreed measures. The Compact must reaffirm global solidarity, increase credibility of the G7, and strengthen reciprocal trust. These measures are needed not only to deal with the global health challenges we face, but also to restore the multilateral system’s capacities to deliver.
This issue paper builds on the various proposals and discussions held between January and May 2022 as part of the T7 Taskforce on Global Health process. It is not a consensus document; but rather seeks to distill months of deliberations by expert groups into practical, policy-relevant strategic proposals (the T7 Global Health Taskforce Policy Briefs) for the G7. They are addressed to not only ministers of health – who we consider as the strongest advocates for the G7 Global Health Compact 2030 – but also ministers of foreign affairs, development, and finance, and of course, G7 Leaders. Prior to this document being finalised, a draft version was also shared with experts from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The feedback we received via a subsequent dialogue that was organised by Amref with over 160 LMIC participants has been incorporated into the final version of this paper, but the key message was the critical importance of ensuring the inclusion of voices of those with lived experiences in all national, regional and global health initiatives.
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