Innovation for Change – East Asia is developing a research framework on the transparency and accountability of COVID-19 vaccine procurement with particular focus on Chinese-made vaccines, which were initially the most widely available vaccines in several countries in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific. We hosted two learning spaces in July, and we are now preparing for the three-day co-creation workshop in August to develop the research framework with the intention of triggering broader discussions on how vaccines became a tool for diplomacy and foreign policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, and contribute to the importance of having vaccine equity.
The global and country-level picture of how governments and corporations handled the COVID-19 pandemic response exposed how emergency processes and systems leaned towards reinforcing inequalities and status quos from the pre-pandemic world. In fact, the production, procurement, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines can serve as a good representation of how governments in high income countries and transnational pharmaceutical corporations disregard transparency, equity, solidarity, and accountability amid the still-ongoing public health crisis.
Please express your interest to join and contribute to the co-creation workshop by filling out this JotForm by Thursday, 28 July 2022: https://bit.ly/TVECoCreation
Only selected participants will be contacted with detailed guidelines for joining the sessions. Preference will be given to those who attended the Learning Spaces and those coming from the regions of focus for the research project – East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific.