Authored by: Nelly C. Rotich, Doreen Aoko Abiero, Josephine Kaaniru Reuben, Chebet Koros and Melissa Omino
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed critical weaknesses in global health governance, underscoring the urgent need for a coordinated international framework to address such crises. In response, the World Health Organisation (WHO) initiated a negotiating process that resulted in the May 2025 Pandemic Agreement, a legally binding instrument aimed at enhancing pandemic preparedness, prevention, and response capacities. This Open AIR Working Paper 31 examines Kenya’s strategic positioning in the Pandemic Agreement negotiations—a positioning grounded in its history of health diplomacy. During the Agreement negotiations, Kenya advocated for equity, pathogen data-sharing, sustainable financing, local manufacturing, and a One Health approach. The paper also examines the potential opportunities and challenges that the Agreement presents for Kenya going forward. Opportunities include strengthened health diplomacy, research and training collaborations, protection of Kenyans from global health threats, and promoting economic diversification. Challenges include global geopolitical tensions between democratic-leaning and authoritarian states, constraints on transfer of technology and know-how, limitations on pathogen access and benefit sharing, domestic health system weaknesses, and dependence on external financing. The analysis further explores how the US withdrawal from the WHO and its suspension of foreign aid disrupted global negotiations and strained Kenya’s health system. Ultimately, Kenya’s interactions with Pandemic Agreement processes, both before and since the Agreement’s finalisation, have demonstrated the crucial interconnections, in matters of public health, between global solidarity and national resilience.
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