
Third Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance.
The Sultanate of Oman is hosting the 3rd High-level Ministerial Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in Muscat, Oman on 24 and 25 November 2022 to accelerate tackling AMR at the national, regional, and global levels and to enhance international cooperation. It will build on the success of the two previous High-level Ministerial Conferences held in the Netherlands in 2014 and 2019. High-level participation will include ministers of health, agriculture, animal health, the environment, and finance, as well as policymakers, key global experts, and representatives from the private sector, civil society, research institutions, and multilateral organizations. The conference will be conducted through keynote speeches, case studies to demonstrate best practices, and interactive discussions between participants. The conference will be an opportunity for an interactive dialogue on One Health action to address the AMR pandemic.
The Third Global High-level Ministerial Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance will center on the theme of paving the way to bold and specific political commitments in the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on AMR (UNGA HLM) in 2024. It is the intention of the Government of Oman that the expected outcomes of the Conference, including the content of the Manifesto, will inform the upcoming UNGA HLM in 2024.
Theme: “The AMR Pandemic: From Policy to One Health Action”
Paving the way to bold and specific political commitments in the 2024 UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AMR
AMR is a continuous pandemic that is making infections in humans and animals harder to treat. It threatens recent gains in key areas of global health, food security, economic growth, and development. New estimates have identified 1.27 million deaths in 2019 from drug-resistant infections. Without action, by 2050 AMR could lead to a 3.8% reduction in annual gross domestic product (GDP) and push as many as 28 million people into poverty.
There has been some global progress in addressing AMR. This traverses across levels and sectors. In 2015, the Global Action Plan by the World Health Assembly was adopted and subsequently endorsed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH). The 2016 UN General Assembly (UNGA) Political Declaration has played critical role to galvanise political action to address AMR across sectors. The Global Leaders Group on AMR was established in 2020 in response to the urgent call for global governance and leadership in AMR. In 2022, the Tripartite officially became The Quadripartite (FAO, WHO, WOAH, the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP), formalizing the historical working relationships between the four organizations, and launched the Quadripartite Strategic Framework for collaboration on AMR. In March 2022, the UNGA decided to conduct a High Level meeting on AMR in 2024.
In 2019, the UN Secretary-General had called upon Member States to deliver the urgent support and investment needed to scale up AMR responses at national, regional, and global levels, recommending that AMR be included in the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. The Establishment of the AMR SDG indicators is a key milestone in recognizing the importance of monitoring AMR as part of the SDGs at national and global levels and catalyzing One Health action on AMR. Most countries have now developed AMR National Action Plans (NAP). However, there are major challenges in funding, implementing, scaling up, and sustaining the full range of essential programmatic and effective interventions. The upcoming High Level Meeting on AMR in 2024 provide a unique opportunity to have bold and specific commitments to address these challenges.
The COVID-19 pandemic, once again, demonstrates the key linkages between humans, animals and the environment. The pandemic has reiterated the importance of early investment in prevention, preparedness, and response towards hazards. This conference comes at a critical moment in which we need to capitalize on the achievements thus far and create a renewed momentum to bring the world together to address this complex health agenda, the ramifications of which reach far beyond human health.
Therefore, the Conference will aim at providing a critical opportunity to showcase strategies to translate political commitment to tangible action, share experience and expertise in implementing the whole-of-government and One Health approaches to mitigate the threat of AMR, and create new avenues for collaboration and strengthening partnerships between countries and international organizations to address AMR in the context of the SDGs.
The commitments arrived during the Conference and endorsed by the Ministers of Health, Agriculture and Environment at the Conference will be encapsulated in the Muscat Ministerial Manifesto on AMR. It is the intention of the Government of Oman that the outcomes of the Conference, including the content of the Manifesto, will inform bold and specific political commitments in the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on AMR (UNGA HLM) in 2024.