Register now: Civil Society Shaping Public Health ? A Global AHF Dialog

The Civil 20 (C20) Summit 2022 starts tomorrow in Indonesia, where AHF will host an exhibition booth and interactive in-person and virtual C20 Side Event ? a Global Public Health Convention for the 21st Century. We invite you to register and join a panel of experts in a discussion on why the leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) must develop a comprehensive public health framework that promotes cooperation, transparency, and accountability among countries to respond to current and future health emergencies.

In under a decade, the world has seen widescale outbreaks of infectious diseases of international concern, such as Ebola, Zika, COVID-19, and monkeypox. These outbreaks are occurring while long-running epidemics remain unresolved and underfunded, including AIDS, TB, and malaria, the re-emergence of polio and measles, and a resurgence of sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis.

"This C20 Side Event will allow us to hear from leading global public health thinkers about why infectious diseases need global solutions, which the G20 must urgently address to redefine and restructure public health," said AHF Director of Global Advocacy & Policy Guillermina Alaniz. "If countries refuse to cooperate for the sake of global health, we are doomed to continue repeating the same mistakes that cause an untold number of avoidable deaths. We're in survival mode as a global community ? the time has come to redefine fundamental assumptions about multilateralism, international cooperation, and public health overall."

Side Event panelists will also identify critical roles civil society needs to fill within a new public health framework and develop a consensus on core principles that C20 advocates can strongly recommend to G20 leaders as the basis for a new Global Public Health Convention.

"Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic have also shown the harmful health inequities that exist between wealthy and resource-constrained countries in access to lifesaving vaccines, diagnostics, treatments, and technologies," said Deepak Dhungel, Advocacy & Marketing Manager for AHF's Asia Bureau. "The G20 must immediately develop a comprehensive public health framework that promotes cooperation, transparency, and accountability globally ? which is the only way to protect the world from widespread illness, loss of life, and economic decline. Global challenges demand collective global action."

AHF also participated in the C20 Health Working Group sessions earlier this year that resulted in recommended priority issues for the G20, including addressing global health architecture, expanding access to all health and COVID-19 commodities, universal health coverage, and strengthening the public health ecosystem.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is a global non-profit organization providing cutting-edge medicine and advocacy to over 1.6 million people in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Europe. We are currently the largest non-profit provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the world. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare