Access to medical products and reproductive rights
Side Event to the 59th Session of the Human Rights Council
23 June 2025
12:00 to 13:00
Room XXVII, Palais de Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
The pursuit of health equity, encompassing fair and just opportunities for all to achieve their full health potential, remains a paramount global challenge. The right to health is a fundamental part of our human rights and of our understanding of a life in dignity. This event will explore the indivisible links between equitable access to medical products, the advancement of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and the strengthening of international cooperation as pillars for upholding this fundamental right for everyone, everywhere. The interconnectedness of these themes is central; they are not disparate issues but integral components of a holistic approach necessary to realise comprehensive health equity.
The side event is anticipated to significantly enhance participants’ understanding of the complex, intersecting challenges and opportunities in upholding health equity, particularly through improved access to medical products and the full realization of SRHR. The discussions aim to identify potential policy pathways, innovative approaches, and actionable strategies for key stakeholders to address existing inequities. Furthermore, a crucial outcome will be a reinforced commitment to multilateralism and collaborative action as essential tools for tackling global health challenges and advancing the right to health, with the dialogue contributing valuable insights to ongoing policy debates in relevant international fora, especially concerning the implementation of recent global agreements and agendas, while also strengthening networks and partnerships dedicated to health equity and human rights.
Scope of Compulsory License and Government Use of Patented Medicines
To meet public health needs governments can use compulsory licenses and government use as a tool for procurement and import of patented medicines. These mechanisms are provided for in most laws worldwide. The WTO TRIPS Agreement, as reaffirmed by the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, recognises the right of WTO members to grant compulsory licenses and their freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licenses may be granted.
This table provides information of instances of their use.
From global to local action: Operationalising AMR commitments in Africa and beyond
11-12 June 2025
Lusaka, Zambia
The ReAct Africa-South Centre Annual Conference 2025 aims to translate these global and regional commitments into actionable strategies for local and national contexts in low- and middle-income countries; with a specific focus on Africa’s needs and priorities. It will serve as a platform for key stakeholders from, but not limited to governments at the regional, national and sub-national levels
A great variety of stakeholders will join the conference in Lusaka: International & regional organizations (Quadripartite organs – FAO, WHO, WOAH & UNEP; Africa CDC, ECSA-HC, etc.), public health professionals and health practitioners, civil society and community organizations, academia and research institutions, youth in AMR, faith sector, private sector leaders and innovators, media and communication experts.
INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME – STRENGTHENING THE RIGHT TO HEALTH
The South Centre is seeking to fill internship positions to support its activities in the area of strengthening the right to health from a perspective of countries of the Global South.
Specific intern responsibilities include, but are not limited to, supporting the Strengthening the Right to Health project.
Statement by the South Centre to the Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly
Agenda Item 15: Antimicrobial Resistance
27 May 2025
The South Centre strongly encourages member States and the Director General to maintain antimicrobial resistance as a WHO priority, with adequate resources in headquarters and regional offices, and increased coherence as a cross cutting issue across various WHO programmes …
Statement by the South Centre to the Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly
Agenda Item 13.9: Global strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health
26 May 2025
We support the implementation of the Global Strategy 2016 – 2030, with increased and sustained financing, towards meeting the health needs and realizing the rights of all women, children and adolescents.
Key interventions include expanding immunization coverage, promoting breastfeeding, improving nutrition, advancing gender equality, and advancing sexual and reproductive health information and services for women and adolescents.
We strongly support the resolution regulating the digital marketing of breast-milk substitutes.
Education & Learning and the Global Digital Compact
by Kishore Singh
The Global Digital Compact, annexed to the Pact for the Future, adopted by the international community at the United Nations Summit of the Future in September 2024, is an ambitious move by the international community to leverage digital technologies for attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It embodies a series of decisions with political commitments for action, with a cautious approach, which relate ipso facto to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, with a focus on skills development.
Salient features of the Global Digital Compact, notably, a human-centric approach to the life cycle of digital and emerging technologies, along with human oversight of technology, treating digital as a common good, the importance accorded to “equitable digital environment for all” and the need for common frameworks and standards for digital public infrastructure and services, etc., have far reaching implications for education and learning.
As a follow up to the Global Digital Compact, it is incumbent upon governments to recalibrate education and learning. This can stimulate policy measures for National Skills Development Strategies. In tune with the principles and policy directions in the Global Digital Compact, this can go a long way in tackling some key issues and challenges with which the education system is beset today. The creation of an equitable learning environment, envisaged by the Global Digital Compact, can be pivotal for bridging a deeply entrenched digital divide. The principle of making the digital subservient to a public good can be a bulwark against forces of privatisation and reverse the trend of flourishing ‘edu-business’, reinforced by ‘edu-tech’. This is invaluable for preserving education and learning as a public good. Similarly, it would be salutary if pursuant to the human-centric approach to technologies embraced by the Global Digital Compact, the risks that digital technologies carry, their pitfalls and perils and their dehumanizing consequences in education are fully addressed. While fostering a humanistic mission of education and learning, such action measures necessitate setting limits to digital technologies which are supplanting the education system.
High expectations placed by governments on international cooperation and multistate partnerships, especially for financial and technical support to developing countries, call for a prudent stance, bearing in mind a rather discouraging experience in this respect.
The challenges in operationalizing the Global Digital Compact are formidable. They require resolute action by governments for living up to their commitments, supported by necessary resources and robust public policies based upon the norms and principles established by the Compact.
South Centre Statement at the Expert Conversation on Human Rights in the Life Cycle of Renewable Energy and Critical Minerals
21 May 2025
This expert conversation organized by the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change in collaboration with the Geneva Environment Network will build on a call for inputs which was issued in December 2024 in order to inform the thematic report of the UN Special Rapporteur to the United Nations General Assembly 80th session. This conversation will gather all interested experts including from Member States, UN agencies, civil society organizations, Indigenous Peoples, peasants, academia and the private sector to participate in this conversation.
South-South Cooperation to Address Health Challenges in the Caribbean. The Role of Medical Cooperation
Side Event organized by the South Centre and the Republic of Cuba during the World Health Assembly 2025
Date and Time: 20th May 2025, 6:00 – 7:30pm
Venue: South Centre (IEV II Conference Centre, Ground Floor, room Rhin, Chemin de Balexert 7/9, 1219 Geneva)
Within the framework of the World Health Assembly 2025, this side event, organized by Cuba, will bring together distinguished Ministers of Health from the Caribbean and Latin America to exchange experiences on the current challenges facing their health systems and the solutions implemented through South-South cooperation.
The panel will focus on how to strengthen South-South collaboration in the health sector, with the aim of building more resilient, equitable, and sustainable health systems in the Caribbean region.
This session will explore how collaboration between Caribbean and Latin American countries has contributed to strengthening regional health systems. Successful initiatives in medical training, professional exchange, and technical assistance will be highlighted. Additionally, innovative medical cooperation strategies that have improved access to and quality of health services for the most vulnerable populations will be discussed, consolidating an exemplary model of solidarity and mutual support.
The event will be conducted in Spanish with simultaneous interpretation into English.
Scaling Up the Health Response to Climate Change: Highlights from the World Health Organization Executive Board’s 156th Meeting on the Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health
By Bianca Carvalho
The Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO), during its 156th meeting held from 3-11 February 2025, discussed a draft Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health (2025 – 2028) (EB156/40). This policy brief explains the content of the draft Global Action Plan and summarises the feedback provided by Member States during the Executive Board meeting.
Member States at the 156th WHO Executive Board meeting made recommendations for the Global Action Plan, including to ensure that equity remains central, to foster collaboration across sectors, and to enhance support mechanisms—both technical and financial—for developing countries addressing the intersection of climate change and health challenges. Member States also called for more consultations before the draft Global Action Plan is considered for adoption at the 78th World Health Assembly in May 2025.
Statement of the Executive Director of the South Centre, Dr. Carlos Correa, at the NAM Health Ministers’ Meeting on the sidelines of the 78th World Health Assembly (May 19-27, 2025)
The decisions to be made at the 78th World Health Assembly will have direct implications not only for national health systems, but also for the very architecture of international cooperation in health. Read the statement by the Executive Director of the South Centre, Dr. Carlos Correa, at the NAM Health Ministers’ Meeting on the sidelines of the 78th WHA.
