Over the last year, governments and health leaders have been working to restructure the global health system to ensure pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a reckoning, exposing a deeply inequitable global health system, and advocates, civil society, health workers and leaders representing southern populations, have called on governments to rewrite the world’s contract – in particular, asking Global North governments to finally give up some power and, in the service of preventing and preparing for pandemic threats, agree to join a system that is equitable and aims to prevent health threats everywhere and prepare everyone.