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The Heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank Group (WBG), and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have agreed on broad principles for cooperation on pandemic preparedness.

This cooperation would allow a scaling up of support to countries to prevent, detect and respond to public health threats through the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST), the WBG’s financial and technical support, and WHO’s technical expertise and in-country capabilities.

A statement yesterday explained that the RST allows eligible member countries to access long-term financing at low interest rates to help implement reforms that address structural challenges to the stability of the economy, such as those posed by pandemics, and to enhance countries’ health systems resilience.

Operating within their respective mandates and policies, the IMF, the WBG, and WHO would leverage their expertise to enhance pandemic preparedness in their member countries, building on the synergies and complementarity of each institution’s in-country analysis and operations.

This collaboration would strengthen the design and articulation of effective policy, institutional and public financial management reforms supported by the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), the policy reforms and investments supported by the WBG, and the technical and operational support provided by WHO.

In strengthening the pandemic preparedness framework, member countries would also work to improve the resilience of their health systems and their ability to respond better to all health emergencies.

According to the statement, under the Broad Principles of Coordination, “WHO and the WBG will continue to take the lead on health-related development policies and, with other multilateral development banks and The Pandemic Fund, on specific project investments for pandemic preparedness. RST financing will not be earmarked for specific projects.

“Pandemic preparedness policy reform measures supported by RSF arrangements will be informed by existing data, analytics and operational engagement of WHO, the WBG, and country authorities.

“Pandemic preparedness reforms will build on each institution’s area of expertise. RSF programmes will focus on macro-critical policy reforms within the IMF’s expertise and complement the work carried out by the WBG and WHO to maximise both the financial resources and technical expertise available to countries. RSF Reform measures can include policy actions aimed at enhancing the readiness of finance and health systems to respond effectively to future health emergencies.”

Commenting on the initiative, Managing Director, IMF, Kristalina Georgieva said: “The stepped-up collaboration with the WBG and the WHO will help our institutions complement and leverage each other’s expertise to help our members strengthen pandemic preparedness and enhance resilience of their health systems. The IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust allows eligible member countries to access affordable, long-term financing to address structural challenges that threaten their macroeconomic stability.”

WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for new sources of financing to bolster health systems to make them more able to prevent and detect epidemics and pandemics, and to respond and withstand them when they strike.”

Also, World Bank President, Ajay Banga said: “We must aggressively be planning and preparing for the next global health crisis, so that when the battle comes – and we know it will – we will have the health workforce that can be rapidly deployed in the face of a crisis, laboratories that can quickly ramp up testing, and surge capacity that can be called upon to respond.”