In Focus

SouthViews No. 298, 6 October 2025

A Revolution in HIV/AIDS Treatment

By German Velasquez

On September 25, 2025, two voluntary licensing agreements were announced between Gilead, the patent holder, and generic drug manufacturers in India for the supply of generic lenacapavir at $40 (instead of the original $28,218) per patient per year. However, too many countries are excluded from the agreements.

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SouthViews No. 297, 3 October 2025

The negotiations on the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing System under the WHO Pandemic Agreement: State of Play as of September 2025

By Viviana Munoz Tellez, German Velasquez

The World Health Organization (WHO) Member States adopted a Pandemic Agreement in May 2025 but deferred negotiations on the critical Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing System (PABS). Despite the tight timeline, the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) has made minimal progress as of September 2025, with no draft text produced and formal negotiations yet to begin. The PABS system is essential for pandemic equity, balancing rapid pathogen sharing with equitable access to vaccines and treatments. But with the current approach to the IGWG process, without formal negotiations underway, Member States risk failing to finalize the PABS Annex by the March 2026 deadline.

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SouthViews No. 296, 1 October 2025

WTO TRIPS Agreement: Insights from a Negotiator at the Uruguay Round of GATT

By Jayashree Watal

This article recounts how the TRIPS Agreement negotiations took place from the perspective of a participant in the negotiations. It outlines India’s concerns with the developed countries’ proposals and notes that most developing countries wrongly thought that TRIPS was about trade in counterfeit goods, a subject that was first broached at the end of the Tokyo Round in 1978-9. On the contrary, Industry associations of the US, EU and Japan had, quite early on in the negotiations in 1988, drawn up a legal text very close to what became the final text of the TRIPS Agreement.

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Book by the South Centre, 2025

Negotiating Global Health Policies

Tensions and Dilemmas

Description:

This book presents reflections and research that highlight tensions in the negotiations on pandemic preparedness treaties and revisions to the International Health Regulations, underscoring the geopolitical divide between developed and developing countries. It advocates regional health initiatives as a response to the multilateral impasse and reflects on the erosion of foundational public health concepts such as “essential medicines”.

New pandemics are inevitable. How can we best prepare for them and, above all, how can we avoid the mistakes and injustices made during the COVID-19 pandemic?

How can equitable access to medicines and diagnostics be guaranteed when they are produced in a small number of countries? How can we explain the fact that current funding for cooperation in the field of health is in the hands of a small group of Northern countries and foundations from the North? How can the role of the World Health Organization be strengthened? WHO now plays only a minor role in coordinating public health policies. How is it that the concept of “essential medicines”, a major advance in public health policy, is being replaced by that of “medical countermeasures”, a term more in line with the private sectors?

Preparing for future pandemics forces us to ask ourselves: how can we safeguard the general interest, the defense of human rights and public health?

Negotiating Global Health Policies: Tensions and Dilemmas is essential reading for negotiators from the 194 member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) who participate in international negotiations on health and development. Academics and students of medicine, health sciences, law, sociology and political science, as well as intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations who work on access to medicines and global health issues, also would find the book of interest.

Author: Germán Velásquez is Special Adviser, Policy and Health of the South Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. Previously, he was Director of the Secretariat on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property at WHO. He represented WHO at the WTO TRIPS Council from 2001 to 2010. He is the author and co-author of numerous publications on health economics and medicines, health insurance schemes, globalization, international trade agreements, intellectual property and access to medicines.

He obtained a Master’s degree in Economics and a PhD in Health Economics from Sorbonne University, Paris. In 2010, he received a Honoris Causa PhD on Public Health from the University of Caldas, Colombia and in 2015 he received another Honoris Causa PhD from the Faculty of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.

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Policy Brief 146, 29 September 2025

Taking Forward Digital Public Infrastructure for the Global South

By Danish

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has received significant attention for its role in promoting inclusive and effective digital transformation, particularly in the countries of the global South. Elevated onto the global agenda under India’s Group of Twenty (G20) Presidency in 2023, DPIs are now considered as key digital solutions for providing essential services like digital identity, financial inclusion, and access to e-governance platforms. Yet, realizing the full potential of DPI in developing countries requires building a policy and regulatory framework that fosters trust, protects rights and addresses persistent digital divides. Robust institutions and governance mechanisms are equally essential to ensure that DPI adoption is inclusive, equitable and aligned to national priorities.

This paper provides a snapshot of the recent policy and regulatory developments on DPI, as well as the relevant stakeholders at the national and international levels. It then considers the challenges of the digital divide for developing countries and briefly presents some national experiences on the use of DPIs for increasing financial inclusion and promoting e-governance. The paper concludes by offering some recommendations to fully harness the benefits of DPI for accelerating sustainable development and digital transformation in the countries of the global South.

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SC Statement – G77+China Event on International Day of S&T and Innovation for the South, 16 September 2025

Submission by the South Centre

International Day of Science, Technology and Innovation for the South

September 16, 2025

Dr. Carlos Correa, South Centre Executive Director, highlighted the transformative role of S&T. He also noted that despite the enormous historical North-South asymmetry in the capacity to generate S&T, developing countries’ share of global R&D has increased steadily in the last two decades, while many countries still invest less than 1% of their GDP in R&D.

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SC Report on FAO Side Event, 26 September 2025

Implementing the 2024 AMR Political Declaration: Industry Accountability and Equity in Agrifood Sector Transformation

By Dr. Viviana Munoz Tellez

On 2 July 2025, at the sides of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Conference, a high-level dialogue on AMR was held, co-organized by the Governments of Kenya and the United Kingdom (co-chairs of the Group of Friends of AMR), the South Centre, FAO, and the AMR Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Platform. The event took place at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, with in-person participation and webcast. Ambassadors and senior officials of Kenya, South Africa, India and Brazil, among others, made interventions in the high-level segment. The South Centre was also part of the panel.

The theme of the event “Industry Accountability and Equity in Agrifood Sector Transformation” provided an opportunity for forward-looking dialogue on the urgent need to transform how antimicrobials are used in agrifood systems, and the government’s required leadership in developing and implementing national policy frameworks that are adapted to national contexts, priorities and needs to address AMR and in adopting measures to incentivize responsible practices in the agrifood sector.

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SouthViews No. 295, 24 September 2025

New Amendments to the International Health Regulations: Strengthening Access to Health Products in Emergencies and Pandemics

By Viviana Munoz Tellez

The International Health Regulations amendments entered into force on September 19, 2025 across most World Health Organization (WHO) Member States. These updates don’t give WHO any new powers but help countries work better together to advance fair and timely access to health products such as vaccines, treatments and diagnostics needed to respond to health emergencies. The real challenge now is implementation and building the necessary capabilities to make these improvements function.

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SouthViews No. 294, 23 September 2025

Trump and the Return of the Nation-State: Hegemony and Crisis of the Neoliberal Global Order

By Humberto Campodonico

This article examines the deepening crisis of the global economic and trade order established after World War II, a crisis accelerated by Donald Trump’s return to the United States presidency. Trump has adopted a stance openly hostile to neoliberal globalization, promoting instead a project centered on reinforcing the nation-state, employing commercial coercion, and using economic power to preserve US hegemony by neutralizing China. His “reciprocal tariffs” and the “Big Beautiful Bill” illustrate this shift, breaking with the World Trade Organization and consolidating elite power while sharply reducing social spending. Far from correcting the inequities of neoliberal globalization, these measures channel the social dislocations of deindustrialization and the impoverishment of the US Rust Belt into an authoritarian discourse of economic sovereignty.

The article situates this process within the broader crisis of democratic capitalism, marked by declining trust in liberal democracy and the rise of populisms and authoritarian regimes that capitalize on discontent without offering redistributive solutions. The analysis draws on Graham Allison’s “Thucydides Trap” and Carla Norrlöf’s reading of Ibn Khaldun to explain both hegemonic rivalry and internal fragmentation. Finally, it explores alternatives to the failed neoliberal order and argues for opening a collective debate on a new international system in which the Global South must play a role.

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SC Statement – HRC60 General Debate Item 3, 19 September 2025

South Centre Statement during the 60th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council

General Debate under Item 3

Geneva, 19 September 2025

At the 60th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC60), the South Centre delivered a statement welcoming the crucial update to the technical guidance on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity.

We are encouraged that the guidance moves beyond technical corrections to address the deep-seated root causes of why women and girls still die during childbirth. In our statement, we highlighted several key advancements:

🔹 An Intersectional Approach: The guidance rightfully identifies structural racism and discrimination as fundamental factors, providing a strong basis for targeted interventions.

🔹 A “Human Rights Economy” Framework: It broadens accountability to international financial institutions and corporations, emphasising that the global financial architecture—including sovereign debt, austerity measures, and healthcare privatisation—must be reformed to prioritise human rights.

🔹 Accountability and Reparations: The call for independent accountability mechanisms and a reparation fund for victims correctly reframes preventable maternal deaths from unfortunate accidents to serious injustices requiring systemic solutions.

These principles are intrinsically linked to the realisation of the Right to Development. A global environment that respects this right is essential for funding public health and creating societies where women and girls can thrive.

The challenge now is implementation. We call on all states, international financial institutions, and partners to fully fund and realise this new, rights-based and justice-oriented guidance.

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