The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, concluded yesterday a two-day visit to Geneva, where he spoke with the heads of the WHO and the WTO about global health, the fight against future health crises, the relaxation of patents for COVID-19 vaccines and the global food crisis resulting from the war in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, the chief executive was received by the director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The meeting took place a few weeks after the XII Ministerial Conference of the WTO, “which closed with important agreements thanks to the leadership of Director Okonjo-Iweala and where the EU also had a decisive contribution and constructive position, in light of the current context of international uncertainty,” Moncloa said in a statement.
Sánchez and Okono-Iweala analyzed the agreements reached at the Conference, including the reform of the organization and the dispute settlement system, as well as the consensus on fisheries subsidies, the extension of the moratorium on tariffs for e-commerce and the relaxation of patents for COVID-19 vaccines.
The major risks to global food security arising from the war in Ukraine were also addressed by Pedro Sánchez and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. According to Moncloa, “Spain is leading an initiative to bring up to 8,000 tons of grain and cereal from Ukraine, to be stored in Spanish ports in the Mediterranean and then transferred to the Maghreb countries.”
Yesterday, Pedro Sánchez met in Geneva with the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to “address the impact of Spain’s contributions to global health and identify new opportunities to strengthen cooperation between our country and this organization,” according to the same source.
During the meeting, the two leaders agreed on the need to expand cooperation in the area of women’s sexual and reproductive health and on the importance of the effects of climate change on health. Pedro Sánchez also stressed Spain’s interest in the WHO continuing its work as the “main pillar and coordinator” of global health initiatives and warned of the need for the organization and its member countries to prepare for possible health crises.
“The Government of Spain, committed to global health, has among its priorities in the multilateral arena, support for the WHO, as evidenced by Spain’s financial support to this organization for the development of vaccines and treatment of diseases such as malaria, and the commitment to donate 100 million vaccines against COVID-19 through COVAX,” Moncloa said in a second press release.
