Event Looks At UN High-Level Panel On Medicines Access, SDGs And Policy Coherence

An event on 17 July at the United Nations in New York will address the “UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines: Advancing Health-Related SDGs through Policy Coherence.”

The High-Level Panel issued its report late last year and has stirred numerous discussions about needed change to ensure developing countries can properly use international trade law to access medicines.

This event ties the report to the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The event is sponsored by the governments of Austria, Colombia, and Ecuador. It will be moderated by Magdy Martinez-Soliman, assistant secretary-general, assistant administrator and director, BPPS, at the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Planned speakers include: Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, former member of the High-Level Panel and professor at the New School; Hon. Michael Kirby, former member of the High-Level Panel and former Justice, High Court of Australia; Clemens Auer, director general, Federal Ministry of Health and Women’s Affairs of Austria; Margrete Auken, member of European Parliament from Denmark; Javier Guzman, director general of the National Food and Drug Surveillance Institute of Colombia; and Mohga Kamal-Yanni, senior health & HIV policy advisor, Oxfam.

The event flyer states:

“By adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Member States committed to ensuring the health and well-being of all people (SDG 3), which includes access to quality, safe, efficacious and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all and supporting vaccines and medicines for diseases that primarily affect developing countries.

“In November 2015, former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon convened a High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines and asked it to propose solutions to boost research and development and access to health technologies in a manner that ensures policy coherence between public health, trade, and intellectual property. The Panel concluded its work in September 2016 and its report was welcomed by the former UN Secretary-General, several UN Member States, civil society groups, and … appeared in resolutions of the General Assembly and Human Rights Council. The High-Level Panel’s recommendations are being further discussed at the World Health Organization and the WTO TRIPS Council.

This side event on the margins of the High-Level Political Forum will unpack the relevance of the High-Level Panel’s recommendations to the health-related SDGs and examine how policy coherence can promote health technology innovation and access.”