Online Event: Optimizing U.S. Global Pandemic Response

COVID-19 has revealed stark deficiencies and weaknesses in pandemic preparedness and triggered a new debate over how the United States is to better organize itself against threats that have profound health and economic consequences, at home and abroad. 

Through the introduction of S.3829, the Global Health Security and Diplomacy Act, Senators Jim Risch (R-ID), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Ben Cardin (D-MD) have proposed a new international initiative to improve U.S. government coordination and partner country resilience in the face of recurrent pandemic threats. Modeled after the PEPFAR program, it puts a primary focus on building partnerships with low income countries, as originally envisioned under the Global Health Security Agenda. It calls for an annually updated U.S. global health security strategy, a senior coordinator for global health security and diplomacy based at the State Department, a strong financial and operational relationship with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), $3 billion in annual funding for U.S programs, and the establishment of an international Trust Fund, under World Bank auspices.  

This legislation has emerged at the same time that the Trump administration is deliberating over the details of the President’s Response to Outbreaks (PRO), which would feature a central State Department coordinator and a new fund, the Preparedness Initiative for Pandemics and Emergency Response (PIPER).

Please join us from 3:00pm-4:00pm on Tuesday, June 2 for a conversation on this important legislative initiative. Joan Condon, Professional Staff Member with the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, will speak to S.3829’s genesis, its rationale, its major elements, and the way forward. Important to consider also is how S.3829 relates to the ideas under consideration within the Trump administration. In the conversation that follows Joan’s opening presentation, Amb. Jimmy Kolker, Senior Associate with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, Andrew Natsios, Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University, and Jim Richardson, Director of the Office of Foreign Assistance at the U.S. Department of State, will share their thoughts.

Daniel F. Runde, Senior Vice President, William A. Schreyer Chair, and Director, CSIS Project on Prosperity and Development, will provide opening remarks to this event, which is co-sponsored by that program and the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security.

J. Stephen Morrison, Senior Vice President and Director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, will preside and moderate the exchange

This event is made possible by general support to CSIS.