Signatories

Organisations:

• ReAct Europe – Professor Otto Cars,
• Wellcome Trust – Rebecca Manaley,
• ReAct Africa – Professor Mirfin Mpundu, Executive Director,
• Global Strategy Lab AMR Policy Accelerator – Dr Geneviève Boily-Larouche, Managing Director,
• Global Antibiotic R&D Partnership (GARDP) – Dr Manica Balasegaram, Executive Director

Individuals:

• Professor Kevin Outterson – Boston University,
• Professor Iruka N Okeke – University of Ibadan,
• Daniel Carelli-Researcher – Centre for Antibiotic Resistance Research (CARe)

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) continues to outpace global action. Countries are making progress, but countless scientific publications with a lack of clear synthesis, competing priorities, and uneven capacity mean the world still lacks a trusted, independent mechanism that can turn a fast-moving scientific landscape into clear, timely, and actionable advice for governments.

The Independent Panel for Evidence on Action against AMR (IPEA) offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix this. To succeed, it must be built on principles that ensure its outputs are credible, legitimate, relevant, and directly useful to countries. The choices made now will determine whether the Panel becomes an engine for progress or another missed opportunity.

With the Member State consultations for the IPEA ongoing, there is a need to ensure the principles of the panel as well as the institutional pathways for its outputs and deliverables are clear and built into the founding documentation. The “invitation” to the Quadripartite to establish IPEA in the political declaration did not resolve the question of authority but triggered a need to identify a legally valid pathway through which IPEA may be established within the legal and procedural constraints of the Quadripartite organizations.
This paper outlines the core principles that should define the IPEA, the essential elements that need to be incorporated into the documentation, and how the IPEA should support Member States through its outputs.

 

Core Principles: What Member States Should Insist On
As outlined in previous briefings1 2 3 4, the IPEA should have clear principles at the core of its design to ensure it delivers, as a resource for governments, to define and prioritise their AMR activity.

1. Scientific independence that governments can trust

Countries need confidence that evidence is free from political, commercial or institutional influence. That requires strong conflict-of-interest rules, transparent methods and governance processes, and the Panel’s freedom to set its own analytical agenda, regardless of how the experts are nominated and appointed.
The reporting and accountability structure of the panel, and in particular the mechanisms through which its work is reviewed, endorsed, or integrated into policy frameworks, need to be clearly defined.

2. Relevance to policy decisions

A credible Panel must produce insights that map onto the pressures governments face: budgets, elections, regulatory reviews, and health emergencies. That means:

• rapid assessments on emerging issues
• clear policy options
• guidance that recognises the multi-faceted constraints that countries are facing, especially in LMICs

3. A genuinely One Health evidence base

AMR is driven by interconnected systems. Policymakers need guidance on evidence to strengthen sector specific systems for human health, food production, animal health, environment and water systems, as well as a synthesis that cuts across these systems. Equally, connected fields, including but not limited to social and behavioural science, economics, ethics, and education, must be a part of the evidence base and expertise drawn on by the panel.

4. Equity, inclusion and global representation

To be relevant worldwide, not only in high-income countries, the Panel must embed Low and Middle Income Country (LMIC) expertise, strengthen participation with funded support, and ensure diverse disciplinary and gender representation.

5. Transparency and open access

Member States benefit from knowing how conclusions were reached. Public peer review, data availability, and publication of minority views will strengthen trust and uptake.

6. Clear complementarity, not duplication

The Panel should not replicate what the Quadripartite, the Global Leaders Group, the Multistakeholder Partnership Platform, or other existing organisations like the Global AMR R&D Hub, already do. Its role is to generate and synthesize independent assessments and actionable advice, not negotiate or advocate.

7. Flexible, efficient work models

The Panel must be able to move quickly through living reviews, partnerships with research networks, and maintain the ability to convene specialised working groups at pace. AI tools can be used, but only with equitable access to these tools.

 

What Should Be in the Founding Document: Essential Elements

To deliver for countries, the founding text should commit the Panel to:

A. A clear, focused mandate to synthesise and assess existing scientific evidence, identify uncertainty, gaps, and future risks, and offer policy-ready options and implementation tools. Notably: It should not conduct primary research or set normative standards beyond knowledge synthesis to avoid bureaucratic processes and overlap with UN agencies.

B. A governance model that protects independence with transparent expert selection and a rigorous conflict-of-interest system that allows the appointment of experts from a variety of fields and with equitable global representation to ensure meaningful LMIC engagement. Equally, there should be public documentation of the financial resources, methods and review processes used by the IPEA to ensure continued trust and transparency into its activities and outputs.

C. A commitment to structured engagement with Governments is essential to ensure the relevance of the outputs for countries. Member States should be consulted on the priority setting of workplans and draft findings of major reports. Opportunities for equitable and global engagement with governments should be provided for feedback, whilst ensuring complete transparency in scientific conclusions. This includes opportunities to highlight ad-hoc country priorities and evidence needs as part of the Panel’s planning. Engagement platforms such as through the government cluster of the Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Platform, the Biennial Ministerial meetings, and High-Level UNGA Meetings should be explored and assessed.

D. A diverse, multidisciplinary Expert Committee with a high-calibre core expert group with regional diversity, One Health coverage, and inclusion of social and behavioural sciences, and economics to ensure reach beyond the traditional academic fields dominant in AMR. This core expert group should have the remit to form ad hoc working groups when needed, drawing on the wide array of expertise needed to deliver relevant and impactful assessments.

E. Clear commitments to speed and agility with rapid-response mechanisms, horizon scanning capacity and living evidence reports.

F. A performance and accountability framework looking at timeliness, policy relevance, equity, and uptake through regular external evaluations. These should be tied
to regular political moments, such as the Biennial Ministerial Meetings on AMR and UNGA High-Level Meetings to ensure Member State engagement.

 

What the IPEA Should Deliver: Output Types That Support Countries

The previous drafts of the founding documentation outlined general areas of focus for the outputs of the panel. However, these were overlapping and did not provide a clear picture of what the Panel will produce.

We suggest an outline of the product types is needed to ensure the panel’s outputs are practical, digestible, and timely.

1. A biennial Global AMR Evidence Assessment

A high-level synthesis linking AMR trends, drivers, impacts and the effectiveness of interventions, shaping global and national priorities. This should focus on the science of current and emerging risks related to antibiotic resistance, and potential impacts of AMR, including but not limited to:

• Overall disease burden and progress thus far against targets
• Microbiology and resistance evolution in human pathogens, animal pathogens, environmental and non-pathogenic bacteria
• Impact of resistance on specific diseases, procedures or vulnerable groups
• Drivers and spread of resistance (routes of spread of bacteria and resistance determinants – pathways such as human to animals, water, geographic spread etc.)
• Economic impact
• Impacts of resistance on food security and food safety
• Impact on environment and ecosystems
• Future outlook including the pipeline of innovations (interventional as well as diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines) with potential for addressing resistance.

This evidence assessment could be timed to the biennial Ministerial Meetings on AMR, supporting these meetings to be focused on global progress and allowing Member States to engage with the findings and enhancing the ability of these meetings to focus most effectively on global progress.

2. Rapid Evidence Notes

Timely responses to issues governments are currently grappling with, including, for example, optimal antimicrobial use benchmarks, environmental leakage evidence, and stewardship and access models for primary care. These should be driven by Member
State need and highlight the importance of a clear route of engagement for governments.

3. Policy Option Appraisals

Clear analyses comparing options for prevention and mitigation with cost, feasibility and equity considerations. These help governments justify investment decisions and prioritise activity and decision making around AMR action. These could look at:

• Health system strengthening
• Education for behaviour change
• Surveillance methodologies
• Innovation & research including drug discovery and development, diagnostics, vaccines
• Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and biosecurity
• Stewardship
• Controlled and sustainable access to antimicrobials
• Innovative financing options

4. Annual Horizon Scans

Identifying upcoming scientific, technological and epidemiological shifts which is critical for proactive planning of both member states and non-state actors.

 

How the IPEA Will Help Member States Deliver Results

1. Stronger priority-setting and smarter investments – By comparing interventions and their expected impact and cost, the IPEA will help governments make the case for funding the right policies at the right time.
2. More effective National Action Plans (NAPs) – Evidence notes and implementation briefs help countries address bottlenecks quickly, enabling NAPs to evolve with the evidence rather than remain static documents.
3. Better targets, indicators and accountability mechanisms – Regular assessments will allow governments to track progress meaningfully, filling a long-recognised gap in AMR governance.
4. Early warning and anticipation – Horizon scans will enable governments to anticipate threats, not just respond to them which is critical for resilience.
5. More equitable global action – By embedding diverse expertise and encouraging Member State engagement, the Panel ensures its advice is relevant across contexts, not just to well-resourced systems.
6. Clearer, more coherent global governance – The IPEA will bring structure to a crowded landscape by providing a single, authoritative evidence engine that feeds into groups such as the GLG, the MSPP, and national governments without duplicating their roles. It will also inform normative frameworks and global action
   plans and should secure sufficient administrative support to enable this cross-governance integration.

 

What Member States Can Do Now

• Continue to engage with the IPEA consultation and launch process
• Champion strong transparency provisions in the founding documents
• Push for a mandate focused on synthesis and actionability
• Support diverse expert participation, ensuring expertise is from a range of fields and weighted towards LMIC involvement.
• Align the Panel’s early workplan with upcoming political milestones (ministerial meetings, funding cycles, UNGA).
• Signal early that you expect the Panel to deliver rapid, practical outputs

 

1 Proposals for improving the Draft 1 of the founding document of the IPEA
2 Designing a Scientific Panel on AMR 
3 Give evidence real power: What an Independent Panel on AMR can and should do – 2025 – ReAct
4 Establishing an Effective and Sustainable Evidence Panel on Antimicrobial Resistance