Monitoring Pandemic Preparedness

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How well are countries prepared for the next pandemic, and how can we measure and evaluate this preparedness? Carolin Mezes explores the significance of pandemic preparedness monitoring in global health security governance, highlighting its failures exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through document analysis and an ethnographic case study of the Joint External Evaluations, the study addresses the critique that preparedness monitoring cannot predict pandemic response performance and is often seen as a mere box-ticking exercise. By analyzing the media technologies involved in preparedness monitoring, Mezes adds nuance to these critiques, revealing how monitoring becomes entangled in the conflicting goals of objective knowledge production, soft-law accountability, and infrastructural development. The research delves into the power dynamics within global health, examining the infrastructural politics of preparedness monitoring and the modernist ideals driving this developmental effort. Ultimately, it scrutinizes how these practices shape our understanding of pandemic readiness and the implications for future global health governance.