Few globally accepted examples can be found of this type of public-private partnership being structured and formalized. In Dubai, to develop a blue-print at a city level that would offer such strategic preparedness, many critical questions need to be addressed, and the participants agreed that there is a critical element to this leadership position: establish an effective public-private partnership.
When it comes to pandemic response and preparedness, recent global events have demonstrated that we cannot rely on government alone. The private sector is actively pursuing new and useful technologies to apply in pandemic situations, across mobile data and communications platforms, logistics, and biomedical research. Continued private sector motivations and incentives should be built into the blueprint, capitalizing on the resources and innovations which defines this domain.
Globally, such a partnership has been launched in the World Economic Forum (Global Supply Network for Pandemic Preparedness and Response). At the local (city) level, the blueprint is yet to be developed. Based on our roundtable, a majority of companies in the private sector are not just willing but anxious to step into this greater role.
The primary recommendation from the roundtable is for Dubai to establish a multi-sector stakeholder group to design and manage Dubai’s pandemic preparedness and response blueprint. Envisaged to be the first city-level public – private pandemic response blueprint with the Dubai 2021 plan. It flows into the two critical components focusing on Dubai being a Smart & Sustainable City, as well as pivotal hub in the global economy.
This taskforce will work on developing a blueprint that will cover various elements of pandemic preparedness and response, including:
• Business continuity (supply chain, access to goods)
• Healthcare equipment (preposition / availability)
• Facilities (healthcare, shelters, quarantines)
• Human resources (healthcare professionals capabilities, readiness, availability)
• Information management sharing
• Media/Communications (messages and content management)
• Financial access (e.g. paying for medicine)
Towards that end, our roundtable discussions have outlined several focus areas to address including ensuring this is a multi-stakeholder multi-sector engagement. The work also needed to build on current government plans, develop various scenarios, and ensure working closely with the media. To succeed, there needs to be strong community engagement (and education), and the blueprint should be replicable (as much as practically possible) to allow other cities to adopt the approach.
For all this to become a reality, the next step would be a design phase. The roundtable participants propose that Dubai government should take the lead in setting up a multi-stakeholder, multi-sector Task Force, hosted by IHC [Innovation Lab] to take the lead on developing this blueprint.
It was stressed that this is concept note is a Call to Action, not simply a report or stand-alone event. The process would begin with a design phase, and then provide a concrete blueprint and operating model to the Dubai Executive Council to formally discuss and – ideally – adopt and launch.
An immediate follow up to developing such a blueprint could be presenting it at a global platform like the World Economic Forum, or even the G20 meetings in 2017 where there are plans to run simulations on global pandemics. Dubai can offer the first city-level blueprint for such simulations.