Revised Global Action Plan on AMR delayed over technology transfer language

2026-02-24

Early February, during the 158th session of the WHO Executive Board, Member States were expected to adopt an updated version of the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, but the process hit a deadlock over the proposed language on technology transfer. Negotiations will be reopened on limited parts of the text ahead of the World Health Assembly in May.

ReAct overall welcomes the revamp of the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, and the recognition within it that equity must underpin global efforts. The revised Global Action Plan, intended to guide global policy on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through 2036, has already gone through a number of public consultations and aims to accelerate implementation of the global commitments.

Governments must preserve a legal space to act

Concerns were however raised by Brazil, Indonesia and Colombia in their interventions during the WHO Executive Board discussion, over proposed language on technology transfer suggesting it should only be done on a “voluntary and mutually agreed” basis. This language seems to have has been added to the text following the recent public consultation.

ReAct fully agrees with the concerns raised that effective technology transfer cannot depend exclusively on voluntary mechanisms, if the global community is serious about strengthening regional production and ensuring timely access to essential health technologies. Brazil’s intervention was both necessary and aligned with the spirit of global solidarity.

While voluntary technology transfer and licensing can be useful tools for expanding affordable and equitable access to medicines, relying solely on voluntary measures has been historically proven insufficient to ensure timely and equitable access to medicines in LMICs – as was abundantly clear during the Covid-19 pandemic. If pharmaceutical companies do not provide timely and affordable access to a certain medicine or health technology, while also not agreeing to the sharing of intellectual property, know-how and technology transfer to allow for local production, then governments must retain a legal policy space to act.

Tactic of normative anchoring

The language – “voluntary and mutually agreed” – is currently debated heavily in the ongoing negotiations of the “Pathogen and Benefit Sharing”-mechanism (PABS) within the Pandemic Agreement. We do not support a tactic in which this contested language is inserted into the Global Action Plan on AMR for normative anchoring – only to later be used as a reference of established language for negotiations of more legally binding agreements like the PABS.

Avoid skewing the power balance

As the Executive Board postponed the adoption of the updated Global Action Plan on AMR to allow further negotiation of the contested text, the discussions now continue. ReAct supports the deletion of this overly restricting language, and urge Member States to replace it with language that does not effectively give pharmaceutical companies full decision power on who gets access and who doesn’t.

The language should align with existing public health safeguards set out in the WTOs TRIPS agreement and in the ‘Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health’. The UNGA Political Declaration on AMR from 2024 point 87 may serve as inspiration towards this end, as it had no limiting qualifier the transfer of technology and know how.

Access to effective antibiotics a necessity

The updated Global Action Plan on AMR should seek to empower all countries – in particular low- and middle-income countries who carry the biggest mortality burden – to protect their populations, and to strengthen local capacity to better manage antibiotic resistance.

Towards this end equitable and sustainable access to effective antibiotics for everyone is not only a moral ambition, but a necessity, if governments are really serious about realizing the goal of reducing mortality from antibiotic resistance by 10% by 2030.