Uniting Voices for Action: Inside the WHO Civil Society Task Force on AMR

2026-04-23

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) affects everyone, everywhere. This global health threat has detrimental effects across human and animal health, agriculture, and the environment, rivalling traditionally important and urgent global health diseases such as HIV, TB, and malaria in terms of the mortality rates recorded in its wake. Addressing a challenge of this scope and complexity transcends technical strategies and solutions. It requires a coordinated, whole-of-society response to bridge the gap between global, regional, and national strategies and community realities.

The WHO CSO Taskforce on AMR is coordinated through a 12-member Steering Committee led by two co-chairs: ReAct’s representative, Tracie Muraya (in photo), and the representative from the Health Diplomacy Alliance, Katherine Urbaez. Photo: ReAct.

Civil society constitutes a critical stakeholder in advancing such a response, one that brings a unique combination of proximity to communities, transparency, and credibility, providing a suitable environment for meaningful engagement. Civil society plays an important role not only in providing oversight to hold leaders accountable, but also in supporting them to translate commitments into impactful actions.

Formation of the WHO Civil Society Task Force on AMR

At first in-person WHO CSO Task Force on AMR held in Brussels, in March 2026. Photo: ReAct

With this background, the World Health Organization leveraged the 2025 WAAW celebrations to establish a Task Force comprising non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations (CSOs): the WHO Civil Society Task Force on AMR.

This 81-member unit constitutes representatives from AMR-focused civil society organizations and is coordinated through a 12-member Steering Committee led by two co-chairs: ReAct’s representative, Tracie Muraya, and the representative from the Health Diplomacy Alliance, Katherine Urbaez. This effort is supported by Philip Mathew at the WHO Secretariat, with oversight by Benedict Huttner (Unit Head – AMR, WHO) and overall strategic direction by Yvan Hutin, Director for AMR at WHO HQ.

Bridging global strategy and community action

The civil society Task Force’s entry is pivotal, as it provides WHO, the organization charged with the mandate to chart the course for global health progress and sustenance, with a strategic pathway for effective linkage to non-state actors.

Through this framework, technical outputs developed through WHO Secretariat expertise are translated into evidence-based, contextualized, and pragmatic community-facing AMR solutions.

Furthermore, the Task Force provides a platform for continued capacity building for its members, fostering the amplification of voices of underserved communities disproportionately affected by AMR.

Key priorities and working groups

Three months on, the Task Force’s governance has taken shape. Three Working Groups have been established to address urgent priority areas in the first year of the current Steering Committee’s tenure, namely:

Global Civil Society Campaign on Access to Penicillins
Community-led Monitoring and Accountability for AMR
Coordinated Civil Society Engagement and Resourcing

These Working Groups provide the framework through which the Task Force will meet its objectives: advocacy and increased AMR awareness; effective dissemination of WHO AMR resources; amplified advocacy for increased investment in AMR (including prevention, sustainable financing, and political commitment); strengthened collaboration and dialogue; and amplification of the voices of vulnerable populations.

ReAct’s strategic contribution

Andrea Svensson Caputo, ReAct Europe, Marina Paullelli, IDEC and Tracie Muraya, ReAct Africa at the first in-person meeting for the task force. Photo: ReAct.

ReAct’s membership in the Task Force is strategically symbiotic. With twenty years of experience advocating for action against AMR, ReAct brings a wealth of expertise to the table, as a think tank advising global AMR policy, strategic advocacy, implementation research, and the translation of policy into evidence-based practice.

Conversely, the Task Force provides ReAct with a platform to leverage and advance its mission to ensure equitable access to effective antibiotics for all, even as support for civil society continues to shrink.

Looking ahead: Strengthening global health efforts

Such strategic partnerships serve to advance WHO’s 14th General Programme of Work (GPW), especially on AMR, despite the ongoing erosion of the global health fabric as the world strives to meet global targets ahead of the 2029 High-Level Meeting at the UN General Assembly.