Your Excellency Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados and chair of the Global Leaders Group,
Mr Qu Dongyu Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
Dr Monique Eloit Director General, World Organisation for Animal Health,
Colleagues and friends.
It is a pleasure to see you all here at this, the first in-person meeting of the Global Leaders Group. My thanks to Prime Minister Mottley for hosting this event, and welcome to the newest members of the group.
Everybody in this room knows the growing threat that antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is posing to the health of people, animals, plants and economies. The millions of deaths each year and counting. The inequity inherent in AMR hitting vulnerable nations and communities. The trillions of dollars that could be lost to annual GDP if we don’t get on top of the problem.
We are facing an AMR crisis – one that is wrapped up in and worsened by the wider triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. The Global Leaders Group and the Quadripartite Alliance are leading our response to this crisis.
Since its establishment in November 2020, the Global Leaders Group has strongly advocated sustained political action against AMR. The group has taken its vision to the UN General Assembly and the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, completed important technical work, set up taskforces and much more.
However, we are only just getting started. The work that has been done so far has gone a long way to laying the groundwork for the action we must take. This first in-person meeting must mark the moment when we really get going.
UNEP is working to provide science-based evidence that can inform AMR strategies and ensure that the environmental dimension is adequately reflected in the One Health response.
In an hour, UNEP will launch a spotlight report on the environmental dimensions of AMR. I won’t give away all the findings now, but this report makes a unique contribution to the global picture of how environment is key in the development, transmission and spread of AMR.
The report looks at knowledge gaps and offers solutions, particularly on preventing and managing chemical and biological pollution from the pharmaceutical manufacturing, agriculture and healthcare sectors, and municipal waste. Please do read it.
Friends,
Today and tomorrow, you will define the future of the work of the Global Leaders Group. As you do so, I ask you to remember that the global response to AMR rests on collaboration between sectors that have traditionally fallen within separate policy spheres. It rests on strong engagement with relevant industries and specific regulatory changes from governments.
And it rests on this group turning the political momentum generated so far into more and better coordinated action, backed by increased, sustainable and predictable funding. On this front, opportunities exist in the Global Environment Facility, the Pandemic Fund and rechanneling distorted subsidies into domestic resources.
I wish you well in emerging with practical steps and goals that you can take forward. To the 2024 UN General Assembly high-level meeting on AMR. To the fourth High Level Ministerial Conference on AMR, hosted by Saudi Arabia. And out into the world to stem the rise of this serious threat.
