Tharman appointed co-chair of new panel on financing pandemic readiness

THE G-20 members have appointed Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam as a co-chair of the newly established High Level Independent Panel on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response.

Together with former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers and former Nigerian finance and foreign minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, they will lead discussions to better fund the global commons for a pandemic.

The panel, which was set up at the first G-20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies meetings, will help the World Health Organization (WHO) assess gaps in pandemic preparedness and enhance global preparedness and response.

Panel members will also work with relevant global health actors, including the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, established by the WHO to leverage resources from various sectors to fund the global commons, according to its press statement on Wednesday.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Mr Tharman said: "There's no avoiding a basic lesson of Covid-19: We have to invest in a stronger international system, to avoid the immense costs of a pandemic on nations large and small."

"We can and must develop practical solutions for better funding of the global commons, and to revitalise multilateralism. Finance is not the whole solution, but it is indispensable to a safer world," he added.