President Jokowi Pushes for Cooperation to Overcome Pandemic, Strengthen Global Health Architecture

Photo caption: President Jokowi during a virtual meeting of Global COVID-19 Summit, on Thursday (05/12). (Photo by: Bureau of Press, Media, and Information of Presidential Secretariat)

The COVID-19 pandemic has given global community a very valuable lesson, that is, the fact that global health resilience and preparedness against the pandemic are not strong enough. As a consequence, the global community must pay the price; millions of people have lost their lives, and the global economy has also experienced a slump.

Therefore, when delivering his speech in a virtual session of Global COVID-19 Summit held in Washington DC, USA, on Thursday (05/12), President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo encouraged all countries to cooperate in overcoming the pandemic, and to build a stronger global health architecture and preparedness.

“To overcome the pandemic, acceleration of vaccination should be done to reach 70 percent of the residents in every country. The declining number of cases today should be used as a momentum to launch the final blow against COVID-19. Vaccination must be accelerated. Our collaboration must bridge the challenges raised by vaccination, starting from funding, logistic, to human resources,” President Jokowi said.

President Jokowi explained that there are at least three things needed to build a stronger global health architecture and preparedness.

First, inclusive access to health. The President suggested that all people without exception should have access to basic health services.

“Basic health infrastructure should be adequate and ready to handle the pandemic. At the global level, every country, be it the big ones or the small ones, the rich ones or the poor ones, must have equal access to health solution,” he added.

Second, adequate funding access. Related to this, President Jokowi encouraged the importance of new health funding mechanism that includes donor countries and multilateral funding banks, because not all countries have resources to improve their health infrastructure.

“Health funding support must be perceived as an investment and a shared responsibility in order to prevent the pandemic,” he continued.

Third, on empowerment. President Jokowi considered that collective capacity should be mustered, and international cooperation is the key. According to him, cooperation in research, technology transfer, and access to raw material must be strengthened.

“Monopoly in the supply chain of health industry should not be allowed. Diversification of production center of medicines, vaccines, diagnostic and therapeutic devices must be done. With its capacity, Indonesia is ready to become a hub for vaccine production and distribution in the region,” he affirmed.

Concluding his remarks, President Jokowi emphasized that Indonesia’s presidency in G20 is paying serious attention to inclusive cooperation in health sector. Therefore, it takes all countries’ roles and participation, the strengthening of World Health Organization’s role, and also multilateralism, he added.

“No country should be left behind in our efforts to build a stronger global health architecture and preparedness. Recover together, recover stronger,” he remarked. (Bureau of Press, Media, and Information of Presidential Secretariat/UN) (AW/MUR)