Global Health Security Agenda Website

The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) was launched in February 2014 to advance a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats, to bring together nations from all over the world to make new, concrete commitments, and to elevate global health security as a national leaders-level priority.

GHSA’s vision is a world safe and secure from global health threats posed by infectious diseases – where we can prevent or mitigate the impact of naturally occurring outbreaks and accidental or intentional releases of dangerous pathogens, rapidly detect and transparently report outbreaks when they occur, and employ an interconnected global network that can respond effectively to limit the spread of infectious disease outbreaks in humans and animals, mitigate human suffering and the loss of human life, and reduce economic impact.

Global health security is a shared responsibility that cannot be achieved by a single actor or sector of government. Its success depends upon collaboration among the health, security, environment. and agriculture sectors.

GHSA acknowledges the essential need for a multilateral and multi-sectoral approach to strengthen both the global capacity and nations’ capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious diseases threats whether naturally occurring, deliberate, or accidental – capacity that once established would mitigate the devastating effects of Ebola, MERS, other highly pathogenic infectious diseases, and bioterrorism events.

Through a partnership of nearly 50 nations, international organizations, and non-governmental stakeholders, GHSA is facilitating collaborative, capacity-building efforts to achieve specific and measurable targets around biological threats, while accelerating achievement of the core capacities required by the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Health Regulations (IHR), the World Organization of Animal Health’s (OIE) Performance of Veterinary Services Pathway, and other relevant global health security frameworks. This partnership is led and supported by a GHSA Steering Group composed of 10 member nations. The Chair of this Steering Group is filled by a different nation each year.

In addition to individual countries, advisory partners include the WHO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the OIE, Interpol, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), and the European Union.

Last modified: March 25, 2019

Language: English