Register[space height=”15″]

An ad hoc committee will plan a two-day public workshop on the financing of global response to pandemic threats, clarifying where the money for surveillance, detection, and response should come from and how it should be spent. The workshop will examine the role of the World Bank’s proposed Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, an organization that will coordinate international financial response to pandemics, particularly how the facility might ensure rapid deployment and prompt remuneration of health workers and minimize transaction times on other expenses.

Speakers will articulate roles for the private sector, especially the reinsurance industry, to bring together multiple financial backers to pool their risks against a global emergency. The workshop will also explore possible underwriting functions of banks, insurers, and investment houses, and analyze how these organizations could ease the financial shock of an epidemic and control the costs of response, including the cost of developing new drugs and vaccines.

The workshop will also give some attention to questions of accounting, describing a system for transparent reporting and auditing of funds. To this end, participants will discuss the management obligations of the investors, creditors, and regulators involved with emergency finance.

For more information, contact Gillian Buckley at gbuckley@nas.edu.