As we’re currently unable to host events in Parliament, the Coalition were delighted to host our first online panel event yesterday, on UK Aid and Pandemic Preparedness, discussing how investments in Research & Development and Global Health Security not only benefit the world’s poorest, but help to keep us safe here in the UK.

The audience—made up of over 90 Parliamentarians, journalists, academics and representatives from civil society—heard from The Rt Hon Sir Stephen O’Brien KBE, Dr Oliver Johnson OBE, Professor Charlotte Watts, Dr Richard Hatchett and Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao.

The Coalition’s Libby Smith kicked off the event by welcoming guests online and setting out the aims of the Coalition for Global Prosperity, which are rooted in the belief that a smart and effective aid budget can and does transform lives around the world.

The first panellist up was the Rt Hon Sir Stephen O’Brien KBE, who served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development from 2010-2012. Sir Stephen praised the work of the UK and said it can, and often did, take an influential and leading role in global crises.

He acknowledged that every country would be taking its responsibility to its own people very seriously, but stressed that you cannot respond to a pandemic without looking at our global inter-connectivity. The virus has no borders, he warned, stressing that this also applied to climate change and international crime, as well as cross border health issues.

The audience then heard from Dr Oliver Johnson OBE, who lead the UK’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone from 2013-2015, through the King’s Sierra Leone partnership. Dr Johnson praised the scale and commitment of the UK's response in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak, but said that international coordination could have been better, and that the international community must draw on this lesson as we aim to tackle Covid-19.

Next up was Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao, Managing Director, Resource Mobilisation, Private Sector Partnerships & Innovative Finance at Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance. Ms Saraka-Yao emphasised the importance of vaccine distribution in low income countries, and stressed that we must not to forget about other diseases during the pandemic. She warned that this could result in poorer countries facing ‘double penalties’, highlighting the high number of measles deaths in the DRC during the Ebola outbreak.

Finally, Dr Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive of CEPI, told the audience that CEPI was a new organisation set up after the Ebola outbreak with a specific mission of developing vaccines for new outbreaks and distributing those vaccines.

Hatchett stressed that it was essential to ensure global access to a vaccine and said that we cannot reduce the economic impact until the pandemic is controlled globally.