Therefore, pandemics cause an economic crisis that is capable of becoming a social or political crisis.
YOGAKAARTA (ANTARA) – G20 members discussed financial sources and the use of health emergency funds at the first joint finance and health ministers’ meeting of Indonesia’s 2022 G20 presidency here on Tuesday night.
Indonesia’s Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin, presiding over the event, highlighted the discussion topics of the meeting.
The first topic pertained to the creation of a Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) as an attempt to mobilize funding sources and other needs through a more permanent mechanism.
The FIF was launched to strengthen the role of the Access to COVID-19 Tool Accelerator (ACT-A) – an ad-hoc body of financial access for many countries to tackle the pandemic.
Funds collected through FIF are intended to facilitate the state in seeking emergency medical measures, such as treatment, vaccine development, and diagnosis of exposed people.
Sadikin expressed his gratitude to the finance ministers of the G20 members for inaugurating the funding sources.
The second objective of the discussion was to encourage G20 members to agree on the use of a global health emergency fund, as currently available funds were able to meet only 50 percent of the budget needed to solve the global health crisis, he explained.
The discussion also included efforts to synergize international genome sequencing laboratory facilities.
“Thus, we can identify pathogens spreading to any region of the world and share information with global scientists,” the Indonesian minister said.
Regarding the diagnosis of exposed people, he stressed the need to make Indonesia compliant with global health protocol standards considering the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily halted the movement of labor and goods due to lockdown policies in many countries. stopped from.
“Therefore, the pandemic causes an economic crisis that is capable of becoming a social or political crisis,” he remarked.
Thus, the G20 Forum needs to create funding and global health protocols to mitigate future pandemics, he stressed.
In addition, the discussion aims to expand the G20’s global manufacturing and research facilities to ensure that low- and middle-income countries are not too burdened by the effects of the pandemic.
The meeting was attended by Finance Minister Shri Mulyani as well as delegations from World Bank, Global Fund and Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID).
Meanwhile, most finance ministers from G20 members attended the event virtually.
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Source: www.bing.com
