Recommendations on Global Health for the 2023 G7 Summit

In 2023, Japan will host the G7 Summit and the G7 Health Ministers’ Meeting. This is a great opportunity for Japan to present and promote a new global health agenda. To this end, we conducted the “Research on Establishment of Japan’s Effective Presence at the G7 Health-related Meetings in 2023 and Contribution to International Health Policy” as a special research project of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Science Grant in FY2022, and studied mainly on three issues.

The first issue is that of universal health coverage (UHC), which Japan has been continuously promoting. Although the importance of UHC is recognized worldwide in light of the COVID-19, there are many items to be further examined in its realization, such as how to create a resilient health system that can withstand crises and the relationship between normal times and times of crisis. In addition, UHC should be designed to take into account the aging of the population.

The second issue is the issue of ensuring access to the result of research, development, innovation, especially for responding to the COVID-19, which is an important issue for the time being. Regarding the response to AMR, there is also a need to promote new research and development and to ensure a stable supply and appropriate use of antimicrobial agents.

The third challenge is to rebuild global health governance. The details of the “Pandemic Treaty” and revision of the IHR, as well as health financing, have been discussed at WHO and others. However, considering issues related to one-health and health issues stemming from global environmental problems such as global warming, it can be said that a broader, multi-layered governance structure is needed.

Based on the above considerations, the following recommendations are made focusing on three issue areas.

The full report can be downloaded below.