Joint Ministerial Communiqué of the Foreign Policy and Global Health Initiative

1. We, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs/Health and representatives of Brazil, France, Indonesia, Norway, Senegal, South Africa, and Thailand met in New York on 24^th September 2026, on the margins of the eighty-first session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA81).

2. We recalled our shared commitments to the Oslo Ministerial Declaration of 20 March 2007, entitled "Global health: a pressing foreign policy issue of our time", as well as to the 22 September 2017 ministerial communiqué "Renewing 10 years of concerted efforts and preparing for new challenges", that both underscored the pivotal role of foreign policy in strengthening health outcomes.

3. We were pleased to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the FPGH Initiative, and welcomed its strategic leadership in the multilateral sphere as a cross-regional forum that is able to bring to the global fore health issues of interest to build consensus on their advancement through foreign policy. It is a cross-regional forum, able to bring attention to global health issues and to propose multilateral actions to face health problems. The FPGH's annual resolution to the United Nations General Assembly on important topics of global health and foreign policy continues to move forward the health agenda each year.

4. We underlined that a strengthened multilateral health system is needed more than ever to enhance our collective Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR) to pandemic threats and public health crises, as the recent Hantavirus, Mpox and Ebola outbreaks have reminded us. We welcomed the convening of the UNGA High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response held on September 25^th, on the margin of UNGA81, and looked forward to the adoption of an action-oriented political declaration.

5. We highlighted the important milestones achieved in recent years with regard to PPPR, including the establishment of the Pandemic Fund in 2022, the adoption of the amendments to the International Health Regulations in 2024 and the adoption of the WHO Pandemic Agreement at the 78th World Health Assembly. The FPGH countries, hand in hand with the World Health Organization, have engaged strongly to achieve these outcomes, contributing to a more coherent global PPPR architecture.

6. We further stressed the importance of the timely conclusion of the annex on the WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System ("PABS Annex"), so that the Pandemic Agreement can be opened for signature and ratification and enter into force without delay, with a view to enabling a faster response to future pandemics and advancing equitable access. We reiterated our commitment to continue working towards this goal and towards the full implementation of the Agreement.

7. We further underscored that effective pandemic prevention, preparedness and response require equitable, affordable and timely access to vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and other essential health products, particularly for low- and middle-income countries.

8. We reiterated our commitment to the cross-sectoral One Health approach, aiming to recognize and build on the interlinkages between human, animal, plant and ecosystem health, which are essential to preventing both communicable and non-communicable diseases. We welcomed the One Health Summit, held in Lyon on 5-7 April 2026, and the political high-level momentum gradually built around One Health. We also commended the role of the Quadripartite organizations, namely, the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Organization for Animal Health and the United Nations Environment Programme, and their continued collaboration and cooperation, as well as the role of regional public health organizations. We underscored the importance of embedding scientific and cross-sectoral expertise at the human-animal-environmental interface in normative frameworks and health policies, especially in the field of PPPR.

9. In that regard, we welcomed the inclusion of a One Health approach in an internationally legally binding instrument for the first-time through the adoption of the Pandemic Agreement. We committed to jointly strive towards the effective operationalization of this integrated approach by putting forward the first UNGA resolution onOne Health.

10. We reaffirmed that multilateralism is not one option among others in health: pathogens know no borders, and no country can protect its population in isolation. We commended the central role of the World Health Organization (WHO), as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work, and its normative and standard-setting functions

11. We urged against attempts to politicize science and call for strengthened efforts to counter disinformation and misinformation, and recognized the scientific and evidence-based guidance provided by WHO as a global public good, essential to effectively addressing health challenges, advancing equitable access and improving health for all.

12. We noted the manifold challenges currently facing the global health ecosystem as decreasing development aid, intensifying demographic and climate impacts, constrained fiscal space, rising health needs, protracted conflicts, and economic imbalances threaten to reverse hard-won health and development and human- gains and warrant a profound restructuring of the global health architecture. Against this backdrop, we reaffirmed the importance of addressing persistent health inequalities and ensuring that no country or population is left behind in efforts to strengthen global health. We committed to supporting, at the highest political level, a multilateral response to the aforementioned challenges and a reformed global health architecture that should, among other objectives, enable a fundamental shift towards greater country health sovereignty and preserve the central role of WHO within the ecosystem, while taking into account ongoing discussion on the evolution of the multilateral development system, global financial architecture and the UN 80 Initiative.

13. We acknowledged the many global, regional and national initiatives that have emerged in recent years to advance the reform of the global health architecture. We further commended the joint and inclusive reform process hosted by WHO, underscoring its essential role in fostering convergence and building consensus among global health actors, with a view to delivering concrete recommendations on reform in the lead-up to WHA80.

14. We reaffirmed our commitment to strengthening our dialogue and better coordinate our actions on the ground, in New York and in Geneva, across the aforementioned processes in which FPGH member countries are fully engaged.

15. We expressed our appreciation to France for its efforts during its Chairmanship in 2026, and warmly welcomed Indonesia as the FPGH Initiative's Chair in 2027.