PD 05 - Securing Political Leadership for Global Health to Accelerate the Elimination of Communicable Diseases

We are living a moment in history when we have most of the necessary tools and technologies needed to achieve these ambitious goals, along with the knowledge on where to continuously invest. Moreover, we have access to the intel provided by civil society and community-based organizations, mapping out the concrete needs of people living with communicable diseases across the globe and pointing the direction on how to end stigma and discrimination.

In this context, parliamentarians are called on to show their willingness to act and ensure the translation of global and regional political commitments and declarations into life-changing policies that can potentially lead to the elimination of these diseases as global health threats.

Within this globalized frame of political action, a continuous process of evidence-based training for and by parliamentarians is needed and this should be done at the global level. It is extremely important that parliamentarians around the globe, in a peer-to-peer approach, raise awareness, share information, good practices, lessons learned and sustainable policies.

Finally, it is equally important that this debate is aligned with the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda to assure that concrete actions to scale-up a Human Rights-based approach are followed.