Lessons learned for the Independent Panel for Evidence for Action against AMR from previous international science panels: stakeholder views from the 2025 Lagos Workshop.

Abstract

In September, 2024, the UN General Assembly assigned the Quadripartite Joint Secretariat on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) the task of establishing an Independent Panel for Evidence for Action against AMR (IPEA). To promote stakeholder views and input around the constitution and functioning of this Panel, which could feed into the Quadripartite Joint Secretariat's consultation process, we independently commissioned seven papers to examine the lessons that could be learned from other high-level scientific panels. We then convened 85 stakeholders, primed with the background papers. The Workshop, held in Lagos, Nigeria in April, 2025, drew representation from around the world, particularly low-income or middle-income countries and Africa, and all One Health sectors. Stakeholder input and preferences on IPEA's structure and governance, science and content, and goals and outputs were collated in small-group roundtable discussions and plenary polling. The stakeholders pushed for a scientifically independent panel that is relevant to and respected by national governments. They also felt that the Panel-rather than third parties-should set its own agenda and establish its ways of working in detail, using open and transparent protocols. In this light, and to ensure that the evidence is presented clearly and forcefully to decision makers, effective communication will have to be a strength of this proposed Panel, along with the ability to parse and synthesise many evidence types from a range of sources. Stakeholder attendees were urged to contribute the Workshop's outputs, shared in plenaries and documented in this Personal View, to the Quadripartite Joint Secretariat's formal consultation.