CSE@UNGA 2024

One of the highlights of this year’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will be a High-level Meeting (HLM) on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR); this HLM, to be convened on September 26 by the President of the General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York,is poised to be a significant milestone. This is only the second time that AMR will be discussed at the UNGA. 

The theme of the HLM will be ‘Investing in the present and securing our future together: Accelerating multi-sectoral global, regional and national actions to address antimicrobial resistance’. The meeting will bring together Member States and observers of the General Assembly, the UN system, parliamentarians, non-governmental organisations, civil society bodies, academic institutions, the private sector and persons affected by AMR, as well as other relevant stakeholders. The meeting is expected to set the global AMR action and ambition for the future. 

CSE director general Sunita Narain, who is also a member of the Global Leader’s Group on AMR, will be speaking at the HLM. CSE has built up a credible body of work on AMR with specific reference to the concerns faced by Global South. Its report on the subject has served to bring together voices from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) as a step towards informing the UNGA’s HLM. In fact, the political declaration that has emerged from the UNGA already reflects some of the ‘asks’ from the CSE report. 

The HLM offers an opportunity for bold and specific commitments and therefore, there are huge expectations from it, as well as from the political declaration that will emerge from the meeting.