G20 Advanced Meetings Appoint Commitments For The Establishment Of A Pandemic Handling Fund

Expert Staff to the Minister of Finance for Macroeconomics and International Wempi Saputra (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Presidency continues to hold the 6th Joint Finance and Health Task Force (JFHTF) meeting as a follow-up to the plan to establish a Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) for the Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (PPR) before the summit's peak agenda in November.

Expert Staff to the Minister of Finance for Macroeconomics and International Wempi Saputra said 19 member and non-member countries, as well as three philanthropics, had made FIF commitments to the pandemic PPR.

"Today's meeting is an important matter in realizing the mandate of the Task Force to ensure that the world is better prepared for the next pandemic," he said in a press statement on Friday, September 30.

According to Wempi, the agreement reached is a form of collaboration between all parties, especially the financial and medical sectors.

"We will mainly continue to discuss the coordination arrangements between finance and health regarding the PPR," he said.

Wempi also added that today's achievement is the fruit of the hard work together since the G20 Leaders' Rome Declaration 2021 when the presidency was led by Italy.

"I am grateful for the support of all parties in this extraordinary achievement, and especially to the members who have made voluntary contributions to FIF," he stressed.

On the same occasion, the Executive Head of the Secretariat Task Force and representatives of India's G20 Presidency 2023 also conveyed updates regarding the potential priority of the finance-health agenda for the coming year.

It was stated that India will continue to support FIF by using three parameters, namely maintaining a global G20 health agenda that is relevant globally, reflecting EMDEs' perspectives, and people centricity.

India also supports the continued JFHTF as a coordination platform and conveys the importance of this platform being continued with an inclusive framework without duplicating existing efforts.

Closing the meeting, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Health Kunta Wibawa revealed the need to strengthen coordination between finance and health to deal with the pandemic.

We need to continue to consolidate our work to strengthen the global health architecture while maintaining efficiency. We noted proposals and comments from members to build the current experience of the Indonesian Presidency and task force to support the work of the chairman with JFHTF in designing, completing and implementing its work program for India's Presidency by 2023," he said.

For information, Indonesia strongly believes that global threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic can only be overcome through collective and coordinated actions.

One of the real results of Indonesia's G20 Presidency as shown by this collective action is the formation of FIF for the pandemic PPR.

It also shows that the JFHTF G20 and its secretariat play an important role in supporting health and financial coordination to deal with the pandemic and other health emergency PPRs in accordance with International Health Regulations.