Perspectives
Profile
Eloise Todd: mobilising civil society for pandemic prevention
“We’re at an exciting moment in the fight for better pandemic
prevention and preparedness, but it’s also a moment of
jeopardy”, says Eloise Todd, co-founder and Executive Director
of the Pandemic Action Network, an international network
of more than 350 diverse organisa­tions. Todd points out
that with the invasion of Ukraine, attention shifted from
COVID-19 “in terms of both political consciousness but also
public consciousness”. Renewing attention on COVID-19 and
pandemic preparedness and prevention is a key focus for the
Network. “Getting political leadership and getting energetic
leaders engaged in solving the problems that were exposed
by COVID-19 is an absolute political priority for us”, she says.
Early in the pandemic, Todd noted not only the varied
government responses to the crisis, but also how civil society
voices were largely absent from discussions. When she raised
the issue of civil society engagement with David Nabarro,
WHO’s Special Envoy on COVID-19, he connected her to
Gabrielle Fitzgerald in Seattle, WA, USA, who, with Carolyn
Reynolds in Washington, DC, USA, and David Kyne in Dublin,
Ireland, had been considering establishing a network to build
on a monthly meeting they had set up. In April, 2020, the four
co-founded and launched the Pandemic Action Network.
“The founding principle of the Net­work is that we want to
make sure that what happened during COVID-19 just simply
isn’t allowed to happen again so that every country is better
prepared for a future pandemic”, explains Todd. “We want to
gather people in and provide tools for existing organisations
to be able to advocate and campaign confidently on
pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response policy.
And push for different rules of the game for low- and middle-
income countries [LMICs] during a pandemic…So they’re not
just invited to the table at a time of high-income countries’
convenience, but they’re actually designing the future”, she
adds. With this priority in mind, the Network is undergoing its
own reforms and has appointed Aggrey Aluso as its Director
for the Africa Region. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Aluso is the
Network’s policy lead and is developing its Africa strategy.
Todd emphasises that Aluso’s team will not be an Africa hub:
“we want the Africa team to be the engine of the organisation
in terms of inspiration and direction of travel”.
Among the Network’s achievements has been campaign­
ing for The Pandemic Fund, which launched in September,
2022. But Todd notes that it still needs adequate resourcing:
“Pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response has been
consistently neglected as a funding stream…We had the
[2014–16] Ebola crisis and there was a ‘never again’ senti­
ment that just dissipated…We have to make sure there’s
a dedicated stream of funding for LMICs to fill the crucial
country level gaps in their preparedness. The Fund only needs
US$10·5 billion a year, which is a relatively modest amount—
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this should be a no regrets investment for all leaders.”
Diah Satyani Saminarsih, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
of the Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initia­
tives in Jakarta, has collaborated with Todd and admires her
“passion and compassion for population health” and calls the
co-founding of the Pandemic Action Network her “biggest
success”, ensuring “pandemic preparedness is still the global
priority”. Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand
and former Co-Chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic
Preparedness and Response, describes Todd as “a very
principled and effective civil society leader” and “an eloquent
advocate” who “speaks with both knowledge and conviction”.
Todd, who light-heartedly describes herself as a “Yorkshire
Belgian Brit”, grew up in East Yorkshire, UK, and has lived and
worked in Brussels and London for over 20 years. Her interest
in current affairs and issue campaigning started early on. As
a child in the 1980s she recalls “writing essays about how
being vegetarian can help counter global warming”. After her
undergraduate degree in Government and European Union
Studies at Newcastle University, UK, she earned a master’s in
European Politics and Administrative Studies in 2000 at the
College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium. Working as a political
adviser for the Group of the Party of European Socialists in the
European Parliament from 2002 to 2007 provided her with
valuable experience. Building political coaliti­ons to get legisla­
tion through in the parliament “set the tone for how I wanted
to work and how I’ve ended up working in my career”, she
says. At the Group, Todd also advised on political missions to
several LMICs and worked on the ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary
Assembly, which bought together parliamentarians from
African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries with members of the
European Parliament to work on common resolutions and
political agree­ments. She later became Executive Director of
Global Policy at the ONE campaign, where her achievements
included helping to raise additional government funding for
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria and founding ONE’s Brussels office.
As for the Pandemic Action Network, Todd emphasises
that the partnership wants to ensure pandemics are
understood as an umbrella issue: “Epidemic and pandemic
threats need to be detected, contained, and acted upon in
the quickest possible way. The return on investment for
doing that properly is so insanely huge, it shouldn’t really
need that much of a pitch. But in a world of short memories…
we will continue to make the case that we absolutely have to
do this for relatively small investments. And that it’s not just
a health issue. It really needs to be tackled with a whole of
government approach and it needs political leadership.”
Udani Samarasekera
www.thelancet.com Vol 401 May 6, 2023