What did Wemos do for global health in the year that global health was under severe threat? We advocated the sharing of knowledge on Covid-19 vaccines, raised awareness on the risks of commerce in health, developed a new programme on health worker mobility in Europe, and much more. Check the highlights of our advocacy work in 2020 in our interactive overview.
The year 2020 will forever be remembered as the year of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has impacted lives all over the world. It has also clearly exposed the inequities that still exist in global health. Thus, the pandemic relates to all the goals we strive for at Wemos: equal access to medicines, sufficient investments in health, and well-trained and motivated health workers.
Like everyone, we had to adjust our day-to-day business by switching to remote working and online events and meetings. Despite the challenges, we seized advocacy opportunities to get our message and policy recommendations across. The past pandemic year therefore brought us many notable highlights.
Within our programme on Access to Medicines, we advocated the sharing of knowledge of Covid-19 technologies to ensure the rapid development and production of diagnostics, vaccines, and treatments for everyone in the world, not only the richest countries. We discussed this in various debates and media, and continued our involvement in the debate around public return on public investments.
Through our work on Finance for Health, we successfully advocated improvements in the new strategy of the Global Financing Facility (GFF), leading to increased civil society involvement, attention for intersectionality, and more transparency. We also raised awareness about the risks of strengthening commerce in health, through discussion papers and contributing to a focus group discussion on the Dutch Aid & Trade agenda.
Our focus on Human Resources for Health led to a new programme on health worker mobility in the European region, with Wemos as lead organisation. We also elicited engagement and major global health donors’ views on the importance of investing in human resources for health; 143 civil society organisations signed our letter, and many donors responded as well. We will continue the dialogue.
Have a look at our new interactive ‘Highlights 2020’ overview to read more about last year’s successes. We hope that 2021 will bring positive changes in global health. Wemos is ready for the new year!
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