The World Health Assembly (WHA) is the decision-making body of the WHO. The 79th meeting of the WHA was held from May 18 to May 23, 2026, in Geneva, Switzerland. Policies and decisions are largely debated and approved through two committees, Committee A and Committee B, before being formally approved in the plenary. Non-state actors (NSAs) in official relations with the WHO are allowed to make short statements on many of the agenda items. This year, those statements were limited to 60 seconds for a single NSA or two minutes for a constituency statement, which can be offered on behalf of 5 or more NSAs.
To be part of the record of the WHA, the statements have to be delivered in person when called upon. In practice, one can spend hours waiting for the NSA speaking slots to open up. This year, Committee A was at the WHO headquarters, and Committee B was in the UN Palais des Nations. The wait can be worthwhile, given the government officials in the audience.
This year Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) made nine separate statements. The headings below represent the WHA agenda item number, and their names, and KEI’s statements (as delivered). The statements were delivered by Arianna Schouten, Thiru Balasubramaniam, and James Love on behalf of KEI.
Among the topics addressed: policies on the transfer of technology, health data space regulation, delinking R&D incentives from temporary monopolies and high prices, transparency and metrics on access and inequality, recommendations for access and benefit sharing triggers in the WHO Pandemic Agreement, a new IEEE standard for meta data on the Provenance of Indigenous Peoples’ Data, and the impact of trade sanctions on medical and humanitarian goods.
12.3 Communicable diseases (Immunization Agenda 2030 / NTDs / TB Strategy)
Universal access to measures that diagnose, treat and prevent communicable diseases has always been important for public health, for obvious reasons. That said, society often struggles to make these countermeasures both affordable and available in a timely manner. The WHO needs to re-engage on the topic of reforming incentives to both invest in biomedical R&D and to provide for the transfer of manufacturing technology, when needed. It’s not enough to embrace platitudes on universal access without confronting the need to make policies that are fit for universal access, including policies on incentives to invest in R&D and, when needed, to transfer manufacturing technology.
12.4 Universal Health Coverage
High prices lead to appalling disparities in access to insurance, as well as the products and services excluded from such insurance.
The most widely used policies to induce investments in R&D are the grant of temporary monopolies, which predictably raises prices for a generation. The WHO needs to re-engage in discussions on the progressive delinking of incentives to invest in R&D from the grant of a temporary monopoly.
KEI asks WHO members to implement provisions in the WHO resolution on transparency (WHA72.8) and, among other things, report on the number of units of products sold, which is the most obvious and compelling metric illustrating whether access is universal or unequal
12.10 Harmonization of regulatory approaches, governance and standards for data, digital health and artificial intelligence in the health sector
The European Health Data Spaces Regulation, published in 2025, is an astonishing ambitious framework for expanding access to data relevant to health, including patient records, genomic information, prices, invoices, regulatory and clinical trial data, and other information.“Secondary uses” of health data are particularly significant, allowing use for R&D on new products, training artificial intelligence systems, and policy analysis. There is a federated/decentralized architecture. The regulation states “the secondary use of health data for research and development purposes should contribute to benefiting society in the form of new medicines, medical devices, and healthcare products and services at affordable and fair prices for Union citizens.”
12.9 Draft updated global action plan on antimicrobial resistance
We are pleased that negotiators eliminated problematic language on technology transfer in the global action plan on AMR. Governments have a responsibility to regulate industry, which can include mandates on sharing access to intellectual property rights, data, biologic resources, and manufacturing know-how. To illustrate state practice on this issue, KEI has published two relevant briefing notes: KEI Briefing Note 2024:2 and KEI Briefing Note 2024:3. These briefing notes illustrate the range of measures that can and are used to mandate the transfer of technology for medical products, including antimicrobial medicines.
13.3 Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on the WHO Pandemic Agreement
Negotiations have obviously stalled on the issues of access and benefit sharing related to physical samples and digital sequence information on novel pathogens.It is our view that negotiators should consider new approaches, including some features of the benefit-sharing agreement in the new law of the sea treaty for areas beyond national jurisdiction.In that agreement, governments take responsibility for the enforcement of benefit-sharing and the triggers for benefit-sharing are down-stream, like the filing of patents or the registration or sale of products.
Also, when considering the terms that may be associated with access to digital sequence information, consider the legal interoperability along with other legal obligations that researchers face.
14.2 Strengthening the evidence base for public health and social measures
In 2019, the WHA approved what was considered, at the time, a landmark resolution on transparency, WHA72.8. Shortly thereafter, the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an emergency treated like a matter of national security, where secrecy and non-transparency were often embraced.
Transparency is important for public health, by having reliable and accurate evidence to design policies, evaluate their impact and performance, and to establish trust with the public.
There is much the WHO and its members do to re-engage on the transparency agenda, but it can start by organizing technical meetings on standards and best practices to implement WHA72.8.
15.3 Health of Indigenous Peoples
Relevant to work on the Health of Indigenous Peoples is a 2025 standard published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, on the “Recommended Practice for Provenance of Indigenous Peoples’ Data.”
This was developed by a Committee of the IEEE Society of Social Implications of Technology.
The standard addresses disclosure of Indigenous Peoples’ relationships and/or links to data, and information that facilitates Indigenous Peoples’ governance, decision-making, participation, collaboration, and engagement in, and for, current and future uses of Indigenous Peoples’ data. This is known as IEEE Standard 2890‐2025.
15.5 Draft strategy on the Economics of health for all
The draft strategy on Economics of health for all calls on states to “Ensure social protection policies benefit individuals based on risks across the life course and people experiencing poverty and social exclusion.” This includes persons living in states subject to trade sanctions. In principle, many governments recognize the need for exceptions to sanctions for medicine, medical equipment, and humanitarian goods. In practice, exceptions are often poorly designed. Businesses and non-profit entities are discouraged from or unable to navigate complex and restrictive procedures. The costs of compliance with trade sanctions and their unintended consequences are an under-studied and under-remedied topic, and should be discussed at the next WHA.
20.1 Standalone Reform of the global health architecture and the UN80 Initiative
The UN80 Initiative is a system-wide reform effort to make the United Nations more agile, efficient, and coherent. An important but neglected reform concerns the harmful impact of economic and technology trade sanctions.
The intersection of international law, trade sanctions, and public health is governed by a complex mix of formal multilateral frameworks, human rights obligations, and state practices. While there is a broad global consensus that medicine, medical equipment, and humanitarian goods should not be used as weapons of economic warfare, the legal, economic, and practical application of these exceptions reveals a significant gap between international norms and reality. This should be discussed at the next WHA.