Global vaccine agreement in port after night shortage

A summit within the World Trade Organization (WTO) has, after many ifs and buts, led to several global agreements.

One should make it easier for developing countries to produce covid vaccine. Another is to prevent overfishing in the world’s oceans.

The 164 members of the WTO met at ministerial level in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss fisheries subsidies, food security and the deregulation of vaccine patents. The most recent ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires 2017 was a flop, as no agreement was reached at all.

The talks in Geneva were scheduled to end on Wednesday, but they continued into the wee hours of Friday. By five in the morning, everything was clubbed and ready.

– The WTO has not seen such a significant number of multilateral results in a very long time, says the organization’s director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was previously Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finance in Nigeria.

Night talk about fish

When the countries failed to agree on each individual issue, they began to negotiate a comprehensive package.

Negotiations to ban support measures for the fishing industry have been going on within the WTO for about 20 years. It was also the fisheries issue that remained last on the table at the negotiations. The hope with the agreement reached is to prevent overfishing in the world’s oceans.

– For the first time, WTO members have reached an agreement that focuses on environmental sustainability. It is also about the livelihoods of 260 million people who are directly or indirectly dependent on sea fishing, says Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Diluted vaccine contract

There were also major disagreements over the issue of patents for covid vaccine.

Countries hosting large pharmaceutical companies, such as the United Kingdom and Switzerland, commented on the initial drafts. The pharmaceutical industry has previously expressed concern that deregulation of patents will affect the development of new vaccines in the future.

The agreement entails a certain deregulation of patents at a global level. But in the compromise that has been reached, things that were talked about before – such as various global tools for spreading covid treatments and tests – are not included.

MSF describes it as a “devastating global failure” for human health.

The member states also agreed on certain reforms of the WTO itself. In addition, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (WFP) will avoid further export restrictions in the future, which is expected to make it easier to try to alleviate the blows such as rising food prices and the consequences of the Ukraine war on grain exports.