The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) has today announced the appointment of a new Board membership, with Joy Phumaphi to serve as co-Chair, and Sir Jeremy Farrar to serve alongside her on an interim basis.
The GPMB is co-convened by the World Health Organization and World Bank Group and is charged with providing a comprehensive appraisal of global preparedness for health emergencies. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed gaps in how the world understands and monitors preparedness, with human elements such as leadership and trust and the performance of multiple sectors found to be crucial to response, and therefore to the evaluation of overall preparedness.
With this perspective in mind, in renewing its Board, the GPMB has sought a membership that can bring a widened perspective. The Board’s co-Conveners, WHO and the World Bank Group, identified former policymakers, diplomats, and other leading professionals with expertise including human rights, economics, law, veterinary epidemiology, environment, gender, global health, and development. Members were selected based on their leadership, reputation, and independence, with a view to ensuring diversity and balance in gender, geography, and sectoral experience.
The GPMB has consistently highlighted the important role of independent monitoring for global health emergency preparedness and response, noting its critical role for strengthening mutual accountability, building trust, and supporting decision-makers to take effective action.
With negotiations underway to create new global health emergency governance structures, including the Pandemic Treaty and newly established Financial Intermediary Fund, the GPMB has emphasised the need for a robust independent monitoring mechanism to shine a light on key gaps in preparedness within the global health architecture, ensuring that actions taken are as effective as possible.
Contributing broad expertise and a focus on evidence-based assessment, the renewed GPMB can support and strengthen independent monitoring activity for a safer world.
Speaking about the appointments, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said,
“Despite the GPMB’s repeated warnings about the ‘cycle of panic and neglect’ that has characterised the global response to health emergencies in recent history, the COVID-19 pandemic caught the world off-guard. As the building blocks of a new global architecture for health security begin to be put in place, the GPMB will continue to play a vital role in monitoring their sturdiness and reliability, and in continuing to alert the world to gaps and weaknesses. I welcome the new board and look forward to working with it closely to make the world a safer place.”
Speaking on behalf of the World Bank Group, Mamta Murthi, Vice President for Human Development, added that,
“An independent and transparent assessment of the status of preparedness has never been more vital. As COVID-19 has demonstrated, a pathogen spreading across the globe has the potential to kill millions of people, disrupt economies, and threaten development gains. Actions and responses should be independently assessed so that they are efficient and take into account health, social and economic factors. Ensuring and investing in preparedness before a crisis strikes saves lives and protects the most vulnerable who are often hit hardest.”
Ms Phumaphi, a former Minister of Health of Botswana, credited for establishing the first public sector universal antiretroviral program in the developing world, has dedicated her career to improving health outcomes for vulnerable populations, empowering communities, and advocating for greater accountability in health. She is currently the Executive Secretary of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance. She previously served as WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Family and Community Health and the World Bank’s Vice President for Human Development.
On the need to address the human elements of preparedness, Ms Phumaphi said,
“Throughout my years working in health, I have so often seen that the test of health emergency preparedness comes at the community level. Do communities have the knowledge, the health resources, and the basic social cohesion and trust that they need to prevent or contain a disease outbreak? Where the answer is no, the world must hold itself accountable for change.
The GPMB has been instrumental in advocating for global action on preparedness that is based upon equity, and an understanding that pandemics arise and must be addressed in the full context of people’s lives. It is an honour to continue this essential work.”
Sir Jeremy, Director of Wellcome, is a leading clinician-scientist who has been a champion for improving access to testing, treatments, and vaccines, arguing that “everyone – not only people who live in rich countries – should benefit equally from scientific discoveries and advances”.
On the important role that independent monitoring can play in building trust, he added,
“The global response to COVID-19 was largely driven by nationalism and geopolitical divisions. The shameful failure to ensure timely access to vaccines and treatments for people in lower income countries indicates the need for far-reaching reforms. By providing an objective, transparent, and impartial evaluation of progress, independent monitoring can help to foster mutual accountability and encourage multilateral cooperation and trust. I am honoured that the co-Convenors have asked me to serve as interim co-Chair of the GPMB as the Board expands its focus on this critical element of preparedness.”
In addition to Ms Phumaphi and Sir Jeremy, other new Board members comprise:
Palitha Abeykoon: Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka and a former WHO Special Envoy for COVID-19 Preparedness and Response
Ibrahim Abubakar: Dean of the University College London Faculty of Population Health Sciences and former Head of Tuberculosis at Public Health England
Bente Angell-Hansen: Norwegian former diplomat and former President of the EFTA Surveillance Authority
Maha El Rabbat: Former Minister of Health and Population of Egypt and a former WHO Special Envoy for COVID-19 Preparedness and Response
Zijian Feng: Secretary-General and Executive Vice President of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association (CPMA) and current Senior Advisor and former Deputy Director-General of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC)
Bience Gawanas: Namibian lawyer and former Under-Secretary-General and Special Advisor on Africa to the UN Secretary General
Jayati Ghosh: Indian development economist and Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Naoko Ishii: Former CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility and Former Deputy Vice Minister of Finance of Japan, Professor and Executive Vice President at the University of Tokyo
Mark Lowcock: British economist and accountant, former Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and former Permanent Secretary of the UK Department for International Development (DFID)
Susana Malcorra: Former Foreign Minister of Argentina, Former Chef de Cabinet to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former Chief Operating Officer of the World Food Programme, and Former UN Under-Secretary General for Field Support, President of GWL Voices
Matthew Stone: Veterinary epidemiologist from New Zealand and former Deputy Director-General – International Standards and Science at the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH)
They will be joined by the following continuing Board members:
Victor Dzau: President of the United States National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and Vice-Chair of the US National Research Council
Chris Elias: President of the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Former President and CEO of PATH
Henrietta Fore: Former Executive Director of UNICEF
Ilona Kickbusch: Member of WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All and Founder and Chair of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva
Daniel Ngamije: Minister of Health of Rwanda
The GPMB was established in the aftermath of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as an independent monitoring and advocacy mechanism to prepare for and mitigate the effects of global health emergencies. Each year, the Board prepares a report that assesses the current state of global preparedness for health emergencies and lays out a roadmap for a safer world. In its first report in September 2019, ‘A World At Risk’, the GPMB predicted the immediate threat of a major respiratory pandemic that would cause many millions of deaths and damage the world economy. Its latest report, ‘From Worlds Apart to a World Prepared’, argued that the failures of the COVID-19 pandemic were rooted in inequality and inaction and exacerbated by geopolitical division. It called for a renewed social contract with equity at its core and laid out six solutions for a safer world.