Every September, world leaders gather at the UN high-level meetings to confront the most pressing global health crises. In 2024, the spotlight fell on antimicrobial resistance – a silent pandemic threatening to make infections increasingly difficult to treat. But, asks Frank Tu Ngo, will the 2024 meeting lead to real change?
As the UN’s only body where all 193 member states are represented, its General Assembly (UNGA) is a crucial forum for global deliberation. Now that the 80th UNGA has concluded, this is a timely moment to reflect on the impact of these gatherings for global health.
Since 1945, the Assembly has elevated only six health-related issues to the highest political level: HIV-Aids, non-communicable diseases, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), tuberculosis, universal health coverage, and pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. This underscores the scale and urgency of these threats, and the need for global action in addressing them.
In 2024, UNGA hosted its second high-level meeting on AMR – a crisis projected to be claiming ten million lives annually by 2050 and inflicting $3.4 trillion in annual global GDP losses by 2030. AMR could pose a threat even greater than Covid-19. The challenge was ensuring the meeting sparked meaningful action.
Lesley Ogilvie, Director of the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Research & Development Hub, saw the 2024 meeting as an opportunity for action:
The high-level meeting on AMR is crucial. It puts AMR under a powerful spotlight, raising it as a top global health priority and pushing for high-level political action
Other experts agree that high-level meetings can play an important role in elevating awareness and catalysing engagement, although their impact on funding or implementation is harder to quantify.
To maximise such meetings' potential, researchers propose:
In 2016, world leaders convened the first high-level meeting on AMR, elevating its global visibility. Funding for research and development rose between 2017 and 2020, but has since declined. Indeed, a report by World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns that current domestic and international financing remains inadequate.
Furthermore, despite some mixed progress, the global burden remains high, with low- and middle-income countries bearing the brunt.
A high-level meeting in 2016 elevated the visibility of antimicrobial resistance. Yet since 2020, funding for research and development has been in decline
Looking back, the 2016 meeting felt like a step forward – but one that did not go far enough. Analysts note several missing ingredients: limited engagement from UN authorities like the Secretary-General and the Security Council, and the absence of concrete targets in that year's declaration.
Eight years on, the 2024 meeting built on that initial milestone, and there were promising signs of progress.
AMR continues to unite a wide range of stakeholders. Since the first high-level meeting, several global coordination mechanisms have launched, including the Global Leaders Group on AMR (2020) – which advocates for AMR at the highest political levels, and the AMR Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Platform (2022) – which promotes cross-sector collaboration. Together, these networks strengthen political consensus and foster cooperation among governments, civil society, the private sector, and research institutions.
High-level engagement has also increased. In 2019, Secretary-General António Guterres called on member states to scale up investment and integrate AMR into the UN Sustainable Development Framework.
In 2020, the UN Security Council, though it did not adopt a resolution, highlighted AMR, during a meeting on international peace and security, as one of the defining challenges of the future, underscoring the gravity of AMR's threat to global security.
The 2024 declaration acknowledges AMR as 'one of the most urgent global health threats and development challenges' and as a driver of severe GDP and productivity losses.
Civil society engagement has also gained momentum. For example, in 2023, the People to Leaders: Act on AMR Now! Campaign, attracted signatures from nearly 200 civil society groups, including major players such as Médecins Sans Frontières. The signatures were presented at a 2024 UNGA side event in New York.
Finally, the 2024 meeting resulted in a declaration with concrete, time-bound commitments, including:
With these favourable conditions, the 2024 high-level meeting concluded with stronger commitments and renewed optimism. But commitments on paper mean little unless they translate into action. The real test begins now.
Major international organisations, including the WHO, are aiming to establish an independent evidence panel on antimicrobial resistance that can guide policy with robust, credible evidence
Several milestones are already taking shape. The Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations Environment Programme, World Health Organization, and World Organization for Animal Health are consulting stakeholders and governments to establish an independent evidence panel on AMR. This is a crucial step to guide policy with robust, credible evidence. The group is also preparing to update the Global Action Plan for a coordinated, global response.
This year’s high-level meeting on health also underscored the direct link between AMR and non-communicable diseases such as cancer, where effective antimicrobials are indispensable for surgery, chemotherapy, and infection control. The integration of AMR advances into treatments for non-communicable diseases demonstrates the cross-cutting nature of this global health threat.
Science and global health are facing growing political pressures. At the September 2025 high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases, the US blocked adoption of the political declaration, revealing the fragility of consensus. By contrast, the previous year’s meeting on AMR demonstrated what global agreement can achieve — clear targets, strong engagement, and broad commitment.
So, when world leaders can find common ground, UNGA high-level meetings can lay a powerful foundation for global health action. And building on that foundation will require sustained leadership, trust, and international cooperation — turning pledges into investment, innovation, and interventions that deliver real results and save lives.
