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.
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.
Webinar Report:
Advancing Antimicrobial Stewardship Policies: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic and Priorities for Future Health Emergencies
By Dr Rasha Abdelsalam Elshenawy
Our recent South Centre webinar examined how the pandemic created a dual challenge for global health:
– MISUSE: 35-75% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients received antibiotics despite low bacterial co-infection rates.
– ACCESS BARRIERS: The pandemic disrupted supply chains and healthcare access, limiting antimicrobial availability in many regions.
This paradox—overuse alongside access challenges—must inform future pandemic preparedness.
Our experts call for:
– Integrating antimicrobial stewardship into emergency response
– AMS frameworks must be established BEFORE health emergencies
– Strengthening surveillance systems and diagnostic capacity
– Ensuring sustainable and equitable access to antimicrobials
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.
Leaving the WHO? The US Just Shot Itself in the Foot
By Germán Velásquez
At the start of his second term, United States president Donald Trump has again announced that the US will formally leave the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2025. Leaving the WHO is a financial blow to the Organization, as many have pointed out, but it is much more than that. Trump’s decision to abandon WHO is counterproductive and puts at risk the capacity of the organization to perform its role as the global health agency. The WHO has been central to responding to global health emergencies for more than seven decades. Its work in the fight against diseases such as smallpox, polio, Ebola and HIV/AIDS, or the binding international convention against tobacco use, has saved millions of lives.
The US’ withdrawal from WHO will have a serious impact on various aspects of global health, and the US will itself be directly affected. WHO members should unite to strengthen the WHO and counteract this decision by the current US Administration.
WHO Pandemic Agreement Negotiations Reach Critical Stage Pending an Equitable Solution on Access and Benefit Sharing
The WHO pandemic agreement negotiations have reached a critical stage while an equitable solution on access and benefit sharing is still pending.
Advancing Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health and Inequalities in Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health:
Highlights from the 156th Meeting of the World Health Organization’s Executive Board
By Bianca Carvalho, Viviana Munoz Tellez
This policy brief examines discussions from the WHO’s 156th Executive Board meeting (February 2025) on the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health. The Director-General reported many countries falling behind on SDG targets for maternal and child mortality, with persistent inequalities in healthcare access. Member States emphasized the urgent need to accelerate progress through universal access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services and rights, including the right to make informed decisions about reproduction free from discrimination, coercion, and violence. Recommendations focused on priorities for updating the Global Strategy and increasing investments. Two resolutions were advanced: one on regulating digital marketing of breast-milk substitutes (proposed by Brazil and Mexico) and another on World Prematurity Day (proposed by Tanzania). These will be considered for adoption by the World Health Assembly in May 2025.
South Centre Statement to the Resumed Thirteenth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to Draft and Negotiate a WHO Convention, Agreement or Other International Instrument of Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response
7 April 2025
Negotiations resume for a WHO pandemic agreement, aiming to finalise the text in 5 days. Will Member States show the needed leadership and will to deliver an impactful outcome with equity at the core?
South Centre Annual Report 2024
The South Centre carries out multiple activities to support developing countries with policy-oriented research, inputs and advice for negotiations and capacity building. The Report summarizes the South Centre’s activities in 2024 and highlights the contexts in which they were conducted as well as the objectives that were pursued with their implementation.
South Centre Statement to the INB13
February 2025
To prevent another COVID-19, the Pandemic Treaty must deliver real legal commitments on equity, technology transfer and benefit-sharing. Negotiations are falling short—consensus can’t mean dilution. A democratic vote is needed.
