People, politics and the governance of early warning and response for pandemics

A story from Botswana and South Africa: the detection of the Omicron variant

The Paris Peace Forum published on 11 November 2022 a groundbreaking report entitled “People, politics and the governance of early warning and response for pandemics”, looking at the political conditions to identify early and respond to a health threat to avoid another pandemic.

Learning from important field work on the detection of the Omicron variant in Botswana and South Africa in November 2021, and drawing on dozens of interviews with decisive actors from the first lab that detected the new virus to those at the heart of the global response, the report contains novel findings on the trust deficit between North and South, the role of scientific networks, effective communication of scientific findings and new models to finance pandemic preparedness. The PPF provides a set of recommendations to strengthen health ecosystems in the global South by incentivizing scientific discovery which is crucial for pandemic preparedness.

Read the report