Spark Street Advisors' written comment regarding the current negotiating draft of the WHO Pandemic Agreement

Accountability remains a weakness in the current draft of the Pandemic Agreement. The agreement should?explicitly refer to an independent monitoring committee?whose role would be to verify the timeliness, completeness, and accuracy of Member State reports to the Conference of Parties (see further details at?Spark Street Advisors and UNU-IIGH, 2023;?Hanbali et al?at BMJ, 2023;?Lehtimaki et al. Lancet, 2024). As such, it would serve to complement state self-reporting and peer review mechanisms outlined in Article 8. The committee could be specifically adopted within Article 21, section 9, which refers to the establishment of subsidiary bodies to the Conference of Parties, and it could operate as part of an ‘Implementation and Compliance Committee’ made up of experts nominated by State Parties.