Humanity
today, in all its fragility, is searching for an
effective and safe vaccine against COVID-19. It is our
best hope of putting a stop to this painful global
pandemic.
We are calling on Health Ministers at the
World Health Assembly to rally behind a people’s vaccine
against this disease urgently. Governments and
international partners must unite around a global
guarantee which ensures that, when a safe and effective
vaccine is developed, it is produced rapidly at scale
and made available for all people, in all countries,
free of charge. The same applies for all treatments,
diagnostics, and other technologies for COVID-19.
We recognize that many countries and
international organizations are making progress towards
this goal, cooperating multilaterally on research and
development, funding and access, including the
welcome $8 billion pledged on 4th May.
Thanks to tireless public and private
sector efforts and billions of dollars of
publicly-financed research, many vaccine candidates are
proceeding with unprecedented speed and several have
begun clinical trials.
Our world will only be safer once
everyone can benefit from the science and access a
vaccine - and that is a political challenge. The World
Health Assembly must forge a global agreement that
ensures rapid universal access to quality-assured
vaccines and treatments with need prioritized above the
ability to pay.
It is time for Health Ministers to renew
the commitments made at the founding of the World Health
Organization, where all states agreed to deliver the
“the highest attainable standard of health as a
fundamental right of every human being”.
Now is not the time to allow the
interests of the wealthiest corporations and governments
to be placed before the universal need to save lives, or
to leave this massive and moral task to market forces.
Access to vaccines and treatments as global public goods
are in the interests of all humanity. We cannot afford
for monopolies, crude competition and near-sighted
nationalism to stand in the way.
We must heed the warning that “Those who
do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” We
must learn the painful lessons from a history of unequal
access in dealing with disease such as HIV and Ebola.
But we must also remember the ground-breaking victories
of health movements, including AIDS activists and
advocates who fought for access to affordable medicines
for all.
Applying both sets of lessons,
we call for a global agreement on COVID-19 vaccines,
diagnostics and treatments – implemented under the
leadership of the World Health Organization – that:
-
Ensures mandatory worldwide sharing of all COVID-19
related knowledge, data and technologies with a pool
of COVID-19 licenses freely available to all
countries. Countries should be empowered and enabled
to make full use of agreed safeguards and
flexibilities in the WTO Doha Declaration on the
TRIPS Agreement and Public Health to protect access
to medicines for all.
- Establishes a global
and equitable rapid manufacturing and distribution
plan – that is fully-funded by rich nations – for
the vaccine and all COVID-19 products and
technologies that guarantees transparent ‘at true
cost-prices’ and supplies according to need. Action
must start urgently to massively build capacity
worldwide to manufacture billions of vaccine doses
and to recruit and train the millions of paid and
protected health workers needed to deliver them.
- Guarantees COVID-19
vaccines, diagnostics, tests and treatments are
provided free of charge to everyone, everywhere.
Access needs to be prioritized first for front-line
workers, the most vulnerable people, and for poor
countries with the least capacity to save lives.
In doing so, no one can be left behind.
Transparent democratic governance must be set in place
by the WHO, inclusive of independent expertise and civil
society partners, which is essential to lock-in
accountability
for this agreement.
In doing so, we also recognize the urgent
need to reform and strengthen public health systems
worldwide, removing all barriers so that rich and poor
alike can access the health care, technologies and
medicines they need, free at the point of need.
Only a people’s vaccine – with equality
and solidarity at its core – can protect all of humanity
and get our societies safely running again. A bold
international agreement cannot wait.
Signed,
Nana
Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo –
President of the Republic of Ghana
Imran
Khan - Prime Minister of
the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Cyril
Ramaphosa - President of
the Republic of South Africa and Chairperson of the
African Union
Macky
Sall - President of the
Republic of Senegal
Karen
Koning Abuzayd -
Commissioner of the Independent International Commission
of Inquiry for Syria, Under Secretary-General as UNRWA
Commissioner-General (2005-2010)
Maria
Elena Agüero - Secretary
General, World Leadership Alliance-Club de Madrid
Esko Aho -
Prime Minister of Finland (1991-1995)¹
Dr.
Shamshad Akhtar - Former
UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of
the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific
Rashid
Alimov - Secretary
General, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (2016-2019),
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan (1992-1994)²
Amat
Alsoswa - Former Yemen’s
Minister for Human Rights, Former United Nations
Assistant Secretary General, UNDP Assistant
Administrator and Regional Director/ Arab States Bureau
Philip
Alston - John Norton
Pomeroy Professor of Law, New York University School of
Law and Former UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty
and human rights
Baroness
Valerie Amos - United
Nations Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs
and Emergency Relief Coordinator (2010-2015)
Rosalia
Arteaga Serrano -
President of Ecuador (1997)²
Maria
Eugenia Brizuela de Avila -
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Salvador (1999-2004)
Shaukat
Aziz - Prime Minister of
Pakistan (2004-2007), former VP of the Citibank²
Jan
Peter Balkenende - Prime
Minister of The Netherlands (2002-2010)¹
Joyce
Banda - President of the
Republic of Malawi (2012-2014) and
Champion for an AIDS- Free Generation¹
Nelson
Barbosa - Professor, FGV
and the University of Brasilia, and former Finance
Minister of Brazil
José
Manuel Barroso - Prime
Minister of Portugal (2002-2004), President of the
European Commission (2004-2014)¹
Carol
Bellamy - Former
Executive Director, UNICEF (1995-2005)
Valdis
Birkavs - Prime Minister
of Latvia (1993-1994)¹
Irina
Bokova - Director-General
of UNESCO (2009-2017)
Gordon
Brown - Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom (2007-2010)
Sharan
Burrow - General
Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation
(ITUC)*
Winnie
Byanyima - Executive
Director of UNAIDS and UN Under-Secretary General
Kathy
Calvin - Former Chief
Executive Officer of the United Nations Foundation
Kim
Campbell - Prime Minister
of Canada (1993)¹
Fernando
Henrique Cardoso -
President of Brazil (1995-2003)¹
Gina
Casar - Senior Advisor to
the Executive Director, World Food Programme
Hikmet
Cetin - Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Turkey (1991-1994), former Speaker of
the Parliament²
Ha-Joon
Chang - Director, Centre
of Development Studies, University of Cambridge
Judy
Cheng-Hopkins - Former
Assistant Secretary-General, Peacebuilding Support,
United Nations
Laura
Chinchilla - President of
Costa Rica (2010-2014)¹
Joaquim
Chissano - President of
the Republic of Mozambique (1986-2005) and
Champion for an AIDS- Free Generation¹
Helen
Clark - Prime Minister of
New Zealand (1999-2008), UNDP Administrator (2009-2017)¹²
Emil
Constantinescu -
President of Romania (1996-2000)²
Radhika
Coomaraswamy - former UN
Under Secretary General and The Special Representative
on Children and Armed Conflict
Ertharin
Cousin - Executive
Director of the United Nations World Food Programme
(2012-2017)
Paula A.
Cox - Premier of Bermuda
(2010-2012)
Herman
De Croo - Minister of
State of Belgium; Honorary Speaker of the House²
Olivier
De Schutter - Special
Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
Danny
Dorling - Professor of
Human Geography at Oxford University
Ruth
Dreifuss - President of
Switzerland (1999) and Federal Councillor (1993-2002)
Diane
Elson - Emeritus
Professor University of Essex, Member of UN Committee
for Development Policy
Maria
Fernanda Espinosa -
President of the United Nations General Assembly
(2018-2019), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador
(2007-2009, 2017-2018) and Member of the Political
Advisory Panel of UHC2030
Moussa
Faki - Chairperson of the
African Union Commission
Christiana Figueres -
Executive Secretary of UNFCCC (2010-2016)
Vigdís
Finnbogadóttir -
President of Iceland (1980-1996)¹
Louise
Fréchette - UN Deputy
Secretary-General (1998-2006)
Sakiko
Fukuda-Parr - Director of
the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International
Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at The
New School
Patrick
Gaspard - Former United
States Ambassador to South Africa, President of the Open
Society Foundations
Jayati
Ghosh - Professor of
Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University
Felipe
González - President of
the Government of Spain (1982-1996)¹
Rebeca
Grynspan - Vice President
of Costa Rica (1994-1998), Ibero-American Secretary
General
Alfred
Gusenbauer - Chancellor
of Austria (2007-2008)¹
Tarja
Halonen - President of
Finland 2000-2012, BoT Member NGIC*
Han
Seung-Soo - Prime
Minister of the Republic of Korea (2008-2009)¹
Noeleen
Heyzer - Member of the UN
Secretary-General's High Level Advisory Board on
Medication²
Mladen
Ivanic - President of
Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014-2018)²
Devaki
Jain - Feminist
economist, Honorary Fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford
and member of the erstwhile South Commission (1987-90)
Arjun
Jayadev - Professor of
Economics at Azim Premji University
Rob
Johnson - President of
the Institute for New Economic Thinking
Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf -
President of the Republic of Liberia (2006-2018)¹
Mehdi
Jomaa - Prime Minister of
Tunisia (2014-2015)¹
Anthony
T. Jones - Vice-President
and Executive Director of Gorbachev Foundation of North
America (GFNA)¹
Ivo
Josipovic - President of
Croatia (2010-2015)²
Naila
Kabeer - Professor of
Gender and International Development at the London
School of Economics
Michel
Kazatchkine - Special
Advisor to the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS)
in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Senior Fellow,
Global Health Center, the Graduate Institute of
International and Development Studies, Geneva
Kerry
Kennedy - President
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, BoT Member NGIC*
Rima
Khalaf - President of the
Global Organization against Racial Discrimination and
Segregation, and Executive Secretary of the United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
(2010-2017)
Jakaya
Mrisho Kikwete -
President of Tanzania (2005-2015)*
Horst
Köhler - President of
Germany (2004-2010)¹
Jadranka
Kosor - Prime Minister of
Croatia (2009-2011)²
Bernard
Kouchner - Minister of
Health of France (1992-1993, 1997-1999, 2001-2002),
Minister of Foreign affairs of France (2007-2010);
founder of Médecins sans frontiers / Doctors Without
Borders (MSF) and Médecins du Monde / Doctors of the
World (MdM)
Chandrika Kumaratunga -
President of Sri Lanka (1994-2005)¹
Aleksander Kwaśniewski -
President of Poland (1995-2005)¹²
Rachel
Kyte CMG - Dean of The
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
Luis
Alberto Lacalle Herrera -
President of Uruguay (1990-1995)¹
Ricardo
Lagos - President of
Chile (2000-2006)¹
Zlatko
Lagumdzija - Prime
Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001-2002)¹²
Laura
Liswood - Secretary
General of the Council of Women World Leaders
Nora
Lustig - President
Emerita of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic
Association, Professor of Latin American Economics,
Tulane University
Jessie
Rose Mabutas - Executive
Board Member, African Capacity Building Foundation,
Expert Member, Accreditation Panel of the UN Adaptation
Fund, and Executive Board Member, Section on African
Public Administration of the American Society for Public
Administration
Graça
Machel - Founder, The
Graça Machel Trust and Foundation for Community
Development
Susana
Malcorra - Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Argentina (2015-2017)
Isabel
Saint Malo - Vice
President of Panama (2014-2019)
Purnima
Mane - Global expert on
gender, HIV and sexual and reproductive health issues,
President of Pathfinder International (2012-2016)
Retno
Lestari Priansari Marsudi -
Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of
Indonesia*
Mariana
Mazzucato - Professor at
University College London and Founding Director of the
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
Mary
McAleese - President of
Ireland (1997-2011)
Rexhep
Meidani - President of
Albania (1997-2002)¹²
Carlos
Mesa - President of
Bolivia (2003-2005)¹
Branko
Milanovic - Visiting
Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center City
University of New York
Aïchatou
Mindaoudou - United
Nations' Special Representative for Côte d'Ivoire and
Head of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire
(2013-2017)
Festus
Mogae - President of the
Republic of Botswana (1998-2008) and
Champion for an AIDS- Free Generation¹
Mario
Monti - Prime Minister of
Italy (2011-2013)¹
Mireya
Moscoso - President of
Panama (1999-2004)*
Kgalema
Motlanthe - President of
the Republic of South Africa (2008-2009) and
Champion for an AIDS- Free Generation
Rovshan
Muradov - Secretary
General, Nizami Ganjavi International Center
Cristina
Narbona - First Vice
President of the Spaniard Senate and former Minister of
the Environment of Spain
Bujar
Nishani - President of
Albania (2012-2017)²
Dr. John
Nkengasong - Director of
African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
Olusegun
Obasanjo - President of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999-2007) and
Champion for an AIDS- Free Generation¹
Djoomart
Otorbayev - Prime
Minister of Kyrgyzstan (2014-2015)²
Roza
Otunbayeva - President of
Kyrgyzstan (2010-2011)¹
Ana
Palacio - Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Spain (2002-2004)
Dr.
David Pan - Executive
Dean, Steve Scwarcman College, Tsinghua University
China²
Flavia
Pansieri - Deputy High
Commissioner for Human Rights (2013-2015)
Elsa
Papademetriou - former
Vice President of the Hellenic Republic (2007-2009)²
Andres
Pastrana - President of
Colombia (1998-2002)¹
Muhammad
Ali Pate - Global
Director, Health, Nutrition and Population Global
Practice of the World Bank and Director of Global
Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents
Kate
Pickett - Professor of
Epidemiology at the University of York
Thomas
Piketty - Professor of
Economics at the Paris School of Economics and a
co-director of the World Inequality Database
Rosen
Plevneliev - President of
Bulgaria (2012-2017)²
Hifikepunye Pohamba -
President of the Republic of Namibia (2005-2015) and
Champion for an AIDS- Free Generation
Karin
Sham Pòo - Deputy
Executive Director of UNICEF (1987-2004)
Achal
Prabhala - Coordinator of
the AccessIBSA project
Dainius
Puras - Special
Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of
the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health
Iveta
Radicova - Prime Minister
of Slovakia (2010-2012)¹
José
Manuel Ramos-Horta -
President of Timor Leste (2007-2012)¹
J.V.R.
Prasada Rao - Special
Envoy to the Secretary General of the UN on AIDS
(2012-2017) and Health Secretary of the Government of
India (2002-2004)
Geeta
Rao Gupta - Executive
Director of the 3D Program for Girls and Women and
Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation
Oscar
Ribas - Prime Minister of
Andorra (1982-84; 1990-94)¹²
Mary
Robinson - President of
Ireland (1990-1997), UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Chair of the Elders
Dani
Rodrik - President-Elect
of the International Economic Association, Professor of
International Political Economy, Harvard University
Petre
Roman - Prime Minister of
Romania (1989-1991)¹
Juan
Manuel Santos - President
of Colombia (2010-2018), 2016 Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate, Member of the Elders and Conservation
International Arnhold Distinguished Fellow
Kailash
Satyarthi - Nobel Peace
Prize Laureate (2014) and Child Rights Activist
Ismail
Serageldin - Co-Chair
Nizami Ganjavi International Center, Senior VP of the
World Bank (1992-2000)²
Fatiha
Serour - Africa Group for
Justice & Accountability
Michel
Sidibé - Minister of
Health and Social Affairs of Mali
Mari
Simonen - Former
Assistant Secretary General of the UN and Deputy
Executive Director of UNFPA
Pierre
Somse - Minister of
Health and Population of Central Africa Republic
Vera
Songwe -
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and
Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission
for Africa
Michael
Spence - Nobel Laureate
for Economic Sciences (2001), William R. Berkley
Professor in Economics & Business, NYU
Joseph
E. Stiglitz - a Nobel
laureate in economics and University Professor at
Columbia University
Eka
Tkeshelashvili - Deputy
Prime Minister of Georgia (2010-2012)²
Aminata
Touré - Prime Minister of
Senegal (2013-2014)¹
Danilo
Türk - President of
Slovenia (2007-2012)¹
Cassam
Uteem - President of
Mauritius (1992-2002)¹
Marianna
V. Vardinoyannis -
Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO²
Ann
Veneman - Executive
Director of UNICEF (2005-2010)
Chema
Vera - Executive Director
(Interim) of Oxfam International
Melanne
Verveer - United States
Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues
(2009-2013), Executive Director of the Georgetown
Institute for Women, Peace and Security at Georgetown
University
Vaira
Vike-Freiberga -
President of Latvia (1999-2007), Co-Chair Nizami Ganjavi
International Center
Filip
Vujanovic - President of
Montenegro (2003-2018)²
Margot
Wallström - Minister of
Foreign Affairs of Sweden (2014-2019)
Richard
Wilkinson - Emeritus
Professor of Social Epidemiology, University of
Nottingham Medical School
Jelta
Wong - Minister for
Health and HIV/AIDS, Papua New Guinea*
Kateryna
Yushchenko - First Lady
of Ukraine (2005-2010)²
Viktor
Yushchenko - President of
Ukraine (2005-2010)²
José
Luis Rodríguez Zapatero -
President of the Government of Spain (2004-2011)¹
Valdis
Zatlers - President of
Latvia (2007-2011)²
Ernesto
Zedillo - President of
Mexico (1994-2000)¹
Gabriel
Zucman - Professor of
Economics at UC Berkeley
¹ Member of WLA Club de Madrid
² Member of Nizami Ganjavi
International Center (NGIC)
* Signatory to
the letter after 14 May, and before the 18 May World
Health Assembly