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LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will promise on Saturday (September 26) a 30 percent increase in funding for the World Health Organization, while urging reforms at the world health body and calling for a reactivation of cross-border cooperation to end the “nasty fissures”. “.
Delivering a recorded speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Johnson will say that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased barriers to trade.
It will also present a five-point plan to improve the international response to future pandemics.
“After nine months of fighting COVID, the very notion of the international community seems tattered,” he will say, according to advance excerpts distributed by his office.
“Unless we unite and turn our fire against our common enemy, we know that everyone will lose. Therefore, now is the time … for humanity to cross borders and repair these ugly fissures.”
His plan includes a global network of research centers, more vaccine manufacturing capacity and an agreement to reduce export tariffs imposed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It will commit an initial £ 71 million to the global vaccine association known as COVAX to secure purchase rights for 27 million doses, and £ 500 million to a separate COVAX initiative to help poorer countries access a vaccine.
Johnson will also announce 340 million pounds ($ 433.23 million) in funding for WHO spread over four years, a 30 percent increase from the previous four-year commitment, with about a third of the money dependent on reform. of the organization.
Britain, along with France and Germany, is voicing support for the WHO, albeit linked to reforms, as the body faces criticism for its response to the pandemic.
The United States gave a one-year notice in July that it is leaving the UN agency, which was created to improve global health, after Trump accused it of being too close to China and mishandling the pandemic of COVID-19.
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