The UN’s new Political Declaration of the United Nations General Assembly on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response – Zero Draft – Manifesto (UN PPPR Declaration) was tentatively adopted at the UN High-Level Meeting late September 2023.

The UN PPPR Declaration has been described by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board as “a key opportunity for the transformation of the global health ecosystem for PPPR, laying out key requirements for the HLM for which it has since advocated.”

So, what’s in the UN PPPR Declaration? Following are just some of the clauses that raise the eyebrow.

1. How much will this cost?

That US$30B will be required annually to be prepared to respond to a health emergency – that is US$30B outside of Official Development Assistance Levels and is only for the WHO to be prepared for a health emergency – it does not mention the amounts required for an actual ‘health emergency’ (PP29 ad OP39):

2. What are we being promised?

The UN PPPR Declaration promises to ensure access for all to pandemic related products, not just the vaccine or therapeutic treatments but also the diagnostic tools (such as the PCR tests), which the UN has offered to coordinate with unspecified ‘relevant partners’, which may be pharmaceutical corporations and vaccine promoting NGOs, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, GAVI the Vaccine Alliance (OP2).

3. What kind of pandemic related products are we promised?

Of note, vaccines are mentioned 17 times in this UN PPPR Declaration. It also calls for improved routine immunisation and vaccination (OP38 (page 12)):

4. Censorship and control of the narrative

The UN/WHO will manage the ‘infodemic’ and control the narrative by quashing any mis and dis-information (OP32 (page 11)):

5. All by May 2024 so they can be voted upon

The UN PPPR Declaration calls for the conclusion of the negotiations of the 300+ IHRAs and Pandemic Treaty at the 77th WHA scheduled for the end of May 2024 (OP44 (page 13)):

Status of the UN PPPR Declaration

The UN PPPR Declaration has only been tentatively adopted because of objections raised by the 11 countries.

The 11 countries were Belarus, Iran, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Russia, Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.

The 11 countries raised concerns about the lack of ‘true and meaningful’ engagement with all member states in the negotiation of the UN PPPR Declaration. The 11 countries also opposed the attempt by the UN President to adopt the declaration at a high level meeting, without the full assembly present (a requirement of the relevant resolution).

Given the status and where the UN PPPR Declaration has progressed to, there is nothing for Australia to do with respect to the UN PPPR Declaration at this stage.