Meeting the 2030 Target on Reducing the Global Burden of AMR: Pathways for Strengthening and Leveraging Surveillance in Developing Countries
By Prateek Sharma and Viviana Munoz Tellez
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) poses a major and growing threat to global health, yet low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face significant challenges in implementing AMR surveillance –collection and analysis of data on AMR. Global AMR targets, including the United Nations’ goal of reducing AMR-associated deaths by 10 percent by 2030 and achieving diagnostic capacity in 80 percent of countries, rely on surveillance data that are often incomplete, hospital-centered, and unrepresentative of community infections in LMICs. While the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) of the World Health Organization (WHO) provides a standardized framework, in LMICs limited access to diagnostics, high laboratory costs, and reliance on data from specialized hospitals constrain participation and data comparability. Modeling studies have helped quantify the global burden of AMR, yet their reliance on sparse LMIC data underscores the need for improved primary surveillance. Achieving the United Nations’ 2030 target—where 80 per cent of countries can test resistance in all GLASS pathogens—will require substantial investment, technical support, and sustained political commitment. Embedding AMR surveillance within health systems and strengthening pandemic prevention and preparedness can help unlock external funding for eligible LMICs through the Pandemic Fund and the Global Fund.
Leading Global Artificial Intelligence Governance from Outcomes to Impact
By Aishwarya Narayanan and Danish
The proliferation of high-level events on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent years has contributed to a global AI governance framework that marginalises many developing countries’ priorities. The India-AI Impact Summit, as the first AI summit of its kind to be held in the Global South, has shown how the views, needs and concerns of the developing and least developed nations can be placed at the heart of the global AI agenda.
Through the lens of the India-AI Impact Summit, this policy brief underscores the need to build synergies between AI summit outcomes, UN-based discussions and multistakeholder initiatives. It posits how coherence among these diverse processes can be advanced through the work of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance under the UN. The brief concludes with recommendations for building greater convergence on global AI governance that supports sustainable development in the Global South.
No Country Can Cruise Past Collective Responsibility: The Hantavirus Outbreak
By Dr. Viviana Munoz Tellez
The hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius is a vivid reminder of why global health cooperation matters. It is one of many simultaneous outbreaks WHO is responding to, at a time the broader architecture of global health is under growing strain. The WHO faces deep funding shortfalls as some governments retreat from multilateralism. Despite International Health Regulations strengthened in response to COVID-19 and a newly adopted Pandemic Agreement, the system for pathogen access and benefit sharing that it must contain remains unfinished. Every country’s health security depends on global collaboration and solidarity.
Input for the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee
Study on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence Systems on Good Governance
South Centre
May 2026
The South Centre has submitted technical input to the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee regarding AI systems and governance. The submission analyses the integration of AI through the framework of Rule of Law principles: effectiveness, accountability, and inclusiveness.
Three Decades of Global Engagement: The South Centre’s Contribution to Intellectual Property and Development
By Nirmalya Syam
South Centre 30th Anniversary Series No. 2, 30 April 2026
This paper is part of a series of publications made in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the South Centre, an intergovernmental organization established in 1995 to advance the interests of developing countries in global governance. Tracing its origins to the 1990 South Commission, it examines the Centre’s pivotal role in shaping intellectual property (IP) policies to promote equitable development. Through rigorous research, advocacy, and technical assistance, the South Centre has supported negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and World Trade Organization (WTO), influencing milestones like the 2007 WIPO Development Agenda and extensions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) transition periods for least developed countries.
Key contributions include promoting TRIPS flexibilities for public health, biodiversity, and technology transfer, with seminal publications on compulsory licensing, patent examination, and traditional knowledge protection. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centre advocated for IP waivers to enhance access to vaccines and therapeutics. Impacts include empowering Global South nations to implement development-oriented IP strategies and reform patent laws. Looking ahead, the paper addresses challenges from digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI), and data governance, calling for strengthened South-South cooperation and proactive advocacy to ensure inclusive IP frameworks. The South Centre remains essential for fostering sustainable development and reducing global inequalities.
UK–India CETA: Patents and International Intellectual Property Governance
By Pratyush Nath Upreti & Virender Chandel
This policy brief locates the United Kingdom-India Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement’s (CETA) intellectual property rights (IPRs) rules in the midst of trade-offs. It succinctly provides an overview of the IPR Chapter, analyses the specific provisions on patents and contextualises IP in the broader context of international IP governance. The analysis of the IPR Chapter shows the parties’ objective to establish meaningful commitments on intellectual property protection and enforcement while preserving regulatory flexibility on development-centric and public health priorities. All in all, the IPR Chapter reflects a compromise between a country with an established, strong IP regime and a country seeking greater policy space and advancing IP norms in areas such as traditional knowledge. As India continues integrating into the global trade architecture through bilateral agreements, the CETA IPR Chapter will serve as a critical test case for whether strategic policy space can be meaningfully preserved within contemporary trade frameworks.
Evidence of Partnerships in the Cuban Pharmaceutical Sector
By Graziela Ferrero Zucoloto
This article analyzes the pharmaceutical partnership agreements of Cuban institutions. It identifies various partnerships with national and foreign firms that spanned 17 countries, with several developed nations appearing as recipients of Cuban technologies, and with Cuban institutions acting as the primary technology holder and licensor in the majority of agreements identified. These findings suggest that Cuba’s state-directed pharmaceutical model has produced an active, innovation-generating sector, with potential lessons for other countries, including Brazil, that maintain public pharmaceutical laboratories.
The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels: Reclaiming Multilateralism for a Just Transition
Informal Note, 28 April 2026
By Daniel Uribe Terán
The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, serves as a necessary platform for reclaiming multilateralism for a just transition. This paper analyses how the conference addresses the ‘judicialization’ of climate obligations following landmark 2025 advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR). It highlights critical barriers facing developing countries, specifically the ‘regulatory chill’ caused by Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms and the ‘debt-fossil fuel trap’ that binds extractive economies to external risks. It also recognises that integrating the ‘People’s Summit’ outcomes into the official Conference could promote a reparative financial model and strengthen the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). Ultimately, Santa Marta should provide a blueprint for systemic reform, ensuring that global decarbonisation respects resource sovereignty and human dignity while moving toward a coordinated, legally backed effort for collective survival.
These inputs have been provided in response to the letter by the Co-Chairs of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance dated 18 March 2026 requesting for stakeholders to share perspectives, priorities and proposals to inform the thematic focus, structure and preparations for the first Global Dialogue, to be held in Geneva on 6-7 July.
Towards an Operative Pathogen ABS System: Implementing the Equal Footing Requirement of Article 12 of the WHO Pandemic Agreement
By Viviana Munoz Tellez, Nirmalya Syam
Multilateral negotiations on the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system remain deadlocked. As required by Article 12 of the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Agreement, the annex operationalizing the PABS system must place on equal footing the rapid and timely sharing of PABS Materials and Sequence Information with the rapid, timely, fair and equitable sharing of benefits that arise from their sharing and utilization. The Annex cannot impose binding sharing obligations on State Parties while making it optional for users of PABS Materials to opt in to the PABS system voluntarily, without legally binding obligations on benefit sharing arising from the utilization of PABS Materials and Sequence Information. The Annex also cannot create a hybrid system providing alternative routes for access, either “open” or “restricted”. This would be inconsistent with Article 12 of the Pandemic Agreement and with the obligations of parties under the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization. The Annex must include a standardized contractual framework binding all actors in the PABS chain, a minimum manufacturer participation threshold before country obligations become active, and ensure benefit-sharing is not confined to pandemic emergencies.
Input for the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development
For the 2026 thematic reports to the Human Rights Council on “Participation in development” and to the United Nations General Assembly on “Peace for development”
South Centre
April 2026
The South Centre has submitted its latest input to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development for the 2026 thematic reports on “Participation in Development” and “Peace for Development”.
Our report underscores that development is not a charitable concession but an inalienable human right. To overcome the structural violence of the current international order, we advocate for:
Reforming the Global Architecture: Democratising the Bretton Woods institutions and the UN Security Council to rectify the historical underrepresentation of Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
A “Human Rights Economy”: Transitioning from voluntary corporate “tick-box” exercises to a Legally Binding Instrument (LBI) that ensures extraterritorial accountability for transnational corporations.
Dismantling “Regulatory Chill”: Reforming the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system, which currently prioritizes corporate profits over the policy space needed for development and climate justice.
A Paradigm Shift to “Positive Peace”: Redirecting a portion of the $2.7 trillion global military expenditure toward the SDGs and grant-based climate reparations.
Substantive Justice: Recognising traditional and indigenous knowledge as valid evidence in policy-making and ensuring reparative justice for historical dispossessions.
Engaging the UN Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence for the Global South
By Danish
The UN General Assembly has set up the new Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence to assess how the development and deployment of AI technologies are creating risks, impacts and opportunities. Co-chaired by Maria Ressa and Yoshua Bengio, the Panel will be presenting its inaugural report in July 2026. This paper presents significant priorities for developing and least developed countries around AI impacts, benefit-sharing and governance, and provides some recommendations on how these priorities can be addressed by the Panel for promoting sustainable development in the global South.
