From left to right:
Co-Chairs Michael Marmot, Monica Geingos, and Joseph Stiglitz, and Convenor Winnie Byanyima
The Mail & Guardian will host the launch of a new report that will show how inequality gaps within and between countries impact pandemics and vulnerability to a new pandemic. The launch is coming at a time of growing concern that governance, economic and social crises are undermining global health security.
The report by the Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics will examine evidence, identify the inequality drivers of pandemic vulnerability, and offer policy recommendations for addressing those drivers. The Council is co-chaired by Nobel prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz, former First Lady of Namibia Monica Geingos, and Director of the Institute of Health Equity Sir Michael Marmot. It has brought together economists, public health experts, and current and former government leaders from around the world.
“To be able to solve a puzzle, you need to work with many different pieces,” explains John Ataguba, Executive Director of the African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA), and a member of the Council. “We could not build an understanding of the challenge of inequality with one profession or one discipline or one type of person. We needed people with different expertise to come together. We have people who are versed in political science, people who understand how economies work, people who are sociologists, people who are policy makers, people who are medical doctors. We had to bring all these professions, disciplines, specialisms, backgrounds and differences together to be able to address the puzzle called inequality and how that impacts public health, and the benefits of that have been borne out clearly in the kind of engagement we have had.”
Matthew Kavanagh, Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy & Politics, and a member of the Council, notes how the Council’s broad range of expertise and lived experience has been key to its ability to produce recommendations that speak both to policy-makers and to the needs of the communities most affected by pandemics. “We have the former Minister of Health of Brazil, sitting at the table with the current Deputy Minister of Health of South Africa, sitting at the table with the leader of the key populations community in Uganda, all working together, with others, to craft an understanding of the inequality-pandemic cycle that is concrete, evidence-based, and most importantly, provides proposals that can be acted on immediately by political leaders around the world.”
UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima convened the Council in 2023 as the many lessons from AIDS, tuberculosis, COVID-19 and other disease threats were not being sufficiently picked up by policy-makers. “Deep inequalities have not been overcome and that is dangerous,” Byanyima says. “When we set up this Council two years ago, it was with a clear vision: to collect the evidence, advocate for the policies, and secure the action needed to address the inequalities that make disease outbreaks more frequent, that accelerate the spread of disease and that intensify and prolong the impacts of pandemics.”
The report, Breaking the inequality-pandemic cycle: building true health security in a global age, synthesises the evidence gathered by the Council over two years. The Council reviewed more than 1,500 studies and reports on multiple communicable diseases—including COVID-19, HIV, Ebola, SARS, influenza and tuberculosis—and the interaction of a range of inequalities with efforts to prevent their spread and provide services to people affected by them. This review was complimented by original research conducted by Council members and research commissioned by the Council. The report includes highlights of this immense body of scholarship that cover issues including the debt crisis, social determinants, access to pandemic products and the critical role of community organizations in the current global environment. The evidence has been distilled into a set of findings and proven practical solutions to overcoming stubborn challenges.
The launch on 3rd November will come ahead of the G20 meetings in South Africa, including the G20 health ministers’ meeting on 6-7 November. The report will also be presented to President Ramaphosa. This year’s G20, chaired by South Africa, has focused its attention on the challenge of inequality.
The launch event in Johannesburg, moderated by Nozipho Mbanjwa-Tshabalala and featuring experts from across the world, will be livestreamed globally by the Mail & Guardian.