Policy Updates

On October 10 and 11, 2024, the G7's Health Ministerial Meeting took place in Ancona, Italy. The discussion focused on three overarching priorities: Global Health Architecture and Pandemic Preparedness and Response, healthy and active aging, and the One Health Approach.

The G7 Health Ministers Communiqué, released at the end of the meeting, highlights the G7's commitment to supporting SDG #3 through universal health coverage, primary health care, and sexual and reproductive health. This also includes maternal, neonatal, child, and adolescent health, strengthening the global health architecture by investing in PPR, promoting regional manufacturing of health products, and equitable access to quality health services.

The communiqué emphasized the health-related impacts of conflicts with a reference to the crises in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan. Furthermore, in the communiqué, the G7 Ministries committed to continue to support Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund, whose replenishment processes will occur in the upcoming months.

The Civil 7 engagement group, a platform through which civil society can engage with the G7, reacted with a communiqué in which they expressed an appreciation for the re-commitment to ending HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria through robust support for the Global Fund in its replenishment next year. This support is crucial to ending the three epidemics as agreed upon in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Finally, the G7 Health Ministers also adopted a policy brief on the opportunities presented by AI for both healthcare providers and patients.

On May 14-15, 2024, the C7 summit was held at the UN FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, organized by the Italian Civil Society Coalition that led, coordinated, and moderated the C7 2024 process.

Approximately 400 global representatives took part in the event, as well as international decision-makers, including FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu, Italian G7 sherpa Ambassador Elisabetta Belloni, Cardinal, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Pope’s envoy for the Russian-Ukrainian conflict Matteo Maria Zuppi, and Director of the UN SDG Action Campaign Marina Ponti.

The official C7 communiqué that listed the international civil society recommendation to the G7’s Leaders around seven key issues was released at the event, which included:

• Economic justice and transformation;
• Climate, energy transformation, and environmental justice;
• Global health;
• Principled humanitarian assistance;
• Peace, common security, and nuclear disarmament;
• Human mobility and migration; and
• Food justice and food systems transformation.

On October, 16, 2023, the BMZ co-hosted the GFF replenishment round as part of WHS 2023 in Berlin and raised a total of US$445 million based on a goal of $800 million, of which Germany pledged EUR25 million (US$26 million).

German Development Minister Svenja Schulze highlighted that the GFF is a key partner in advancing women's rights, MNCH, and SRHR. She committed to continuing the campaign to advocate for sufficient financing for GFF.

The GFF's flagship Deliver the Future initiative had a stated goal to raise US$800 million to improve the health and rights of 250 million women and children. The campaign for additional financing for the GFF started in June 2023, when a post-pandemic funding gap for women's health, MNCH, and SRHR first became apparent. The pledging event fell US$355 million short of its goal, raising concerns about the initiative's ability to meet its support and development targets. Further investment towards the goal is expected in 2024.

Germany's contribution amounted to EUR25 million (US$26 million), in line with previous annual commitments since 2020. Critics from the DSW, Global Citizen, Save the Children Deutschland and World Vision Deutschland previously advocated strongly for a German commitment of EUR100 million (US$106 million) to the GFF, asserting that a small contribution would hurt Germany's reputation as co-host.