The Parliamentarians for Peace (P4P) compose a transnational and transpartisan network of Members of national parliaments committed to prevent new threats for peace. Created and curated by the Open Diplomacy Institute, this programme is powered by the Normandy World Peace Forum.
The P4P adopted their Peace Policy Platform on October 2nd 2020, at the Forum in Caen. Based on principles of international cooperation agreed upon across national and political boundaries, this Platform refers to solutions addressing the most pressing international challenges discussed by the P4P.
On February 4th, 2021, the P4P met with project leaders and policymakers carrying out solutions to implement an ambitious inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, recalling together that “health is one of the key drivers of stable and peaceful communities”.
First, they led a hearing of Guillaume Grosso, Director for International Business Development and European Strategy at GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance. Commanding the work of the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) mechanism, the P4P agreed on the following:
- The necessity to fight against the global crisis of COVID-19 has strengthened international cooperation dynamics to unprecedented degrees, vaccine production and vaccination strategies.
- This dynamic should be firmly sustained, and major efforts be focused on improving transparency and efficiency further. As such, GAVI could represent a relevant benchmark.
- The cooperation effort with developing countries must be deepened beyond the COVID-19 crisis, particularly regarding health issues and economic rebound. Not only via debt relief, as agreed by the G20 in November 2020, but also in global and equal access to vaccines.
- Multistakeholder initiatives such as the COVAX mechanism provide innovative and ambitious model frameworks to tackle such global challenges.
Then, the P4P met with Stefan Swartling Peterson, Professor of Global Transformations for Health at Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), former Chief of Health Section for UNICEF, and Member of the Advisory Council of The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the SDG Era.
The P4P underlined at this occasion the importance of a holistic approach to health issues taking into account prevention as well as treatment, and encompassing social and mental health on top of physical health.
“Beyond protecting people and lives from the pandemic, the fight against COVID-19 shall represent a pivotal time in international cooperation on health issues, particularly towards developing countries, and to tackle entrenched socio-economic issues” concluded the Parliamentarians for Peace.