Former Ministers and a Former Head of Government Press the G20 to Put Brain Health Inside Its AI Agenda

Global Communiqué urges prevention as the foundation of Alzheimer’s policy, and a standing G20 mechanism so leadership on brain health outlasts individual governments

WASHINGTON, Nov. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Former ministers, including a former head of government, and global health leaders today published a Global Communiqué, initiated by Dr Nora Berra, former Minister for Seniors and former Minister of Health of France, calling on the G20 and all governments to act with urgency on Alzheimer’s disease as a global health priority, to make prevention the foundation of that action, and to establish a permanent mechanism to sustain political commitment. With artificial intelligence at the heart of the G20 agenda, the signatories call on governments to seize this opportunity to harness AI in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and advance brain health worldwide. The statement is released today with an open invitation to further signatories.

The signatories argue that science has opened a window governments have not yet walked through. The biological changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease begin ten to twenty years before the first symptoms. Blood tests can increasingly detect the biological markers of the disease, tools to identify people at increased risk are advancing rapidly, and trials are now testing whether intervening before symptoms appear can stop the disease from taking hold. Nearly half of all dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by modifying risk factors over a lifetime.

The communiqué’s third call is addressed to the governments now writing the rules that will shape the development and use of artificial intelligence. The signatories urge them to ensure that this technology is deliberately directed towards advancing our understanding of the brain, preventing diseases that impair cognitive abilities, and accelerating their early detection and treatment. AI is already accelerating biomarker discovery, trial design and the detection of risk years before symptoms appear, and private funders have begun to move: the OpenAI Foundation announced in April 2026 that it would direct more than $100 million in initial grants across six research institutions to accelerate Alzheimer’s research, with further grants expected. The signatories call on governments to facilitate access to population-scale health data under strong safeguards, establish standards for validating AI-derived diagnostics, and ensure that the resulting innovations reach lower- and middle-income countries rather than widening existing inequalities.

“Prevention is one of the most powerful investments in health, yet its benefits take decades to emerge. As France’s Minister for Seniors and later Minister of Health, I saw how political leadership could make Alzheimer’s a national and European priority. We must bring that same determination to global health. The G20 must establish a standing mechanism to sustain commitment, advance prevention and measure progress across successive presidencies—not another declaration, but lasting political action,” said Dr Nora Berra, former Minister for Seniors and former Minister of Health of France, who initiated the communiqué following the Lausanne Workshop and mobilised its signatories.

“The science has moved faster than our politics,” said George Vradenburg, Founding Chairman of the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative and co-founder of the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease. “We can now see Alzheimer’s in the blood years before symptoms appear, and we know that a large share of dementia is preventable. What we lack is a political system that acts on that knowledge. The people who signed this have governed. They know how a commitment survives an election, and how it dies with one. Their call to the G20 is for a mechanism that outlasts all of us.”

The timing is deliberate. The United Kingdom takes over the G20 presidency in 2027 and has said artificial intelligence will sit at the centre of it, more than a decade after it convened the G8 Dementia Summit in London. As the communiqué states, “An agenda that governs artificial intelligence without directing it towards human brain health and cognitive diseases is incomplete.”

More than 57 million people were living with dementia in 2021, a number projected to reach 152 million by 2050, with the fastest increases expected across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The global economic cost was estimated at $1.3 trillion in 2019, and the burden falls disproportionately on women, who represent the majority of people living with dementia and provide around 70 percent of care hours.

“Health systems were built to treat disease, and they are financed to treat disease,” said Julio Frenk, former Minister of Health of Mexico. “Prevention loses that argument in every budget cycle, in wealthy countries and poor ones alike. The evidence on dementia is now strong enough to change the terms of the argument. Nearly half of cases can be prevented or delayed, and we can increasingly see the disease in the blood before it takes hold. What remains is to finance brain health the way we have learned to finance immunization and maternal health, as something a system does before people fall ill.”

The signatories set out seven calls to governments: make prevention the organizing principle of national Alzheimer’s and brain health policy; establish a permanent G20 mechanism for Alzheimer’s prevention and brain health, with regular monitoring and accountability to ensure continuity beyond individual presidencies and political cycles; direct the global artificial intelligence agenda towards brain health; adopt a life-course approach to brain health; ensure timely access to appropriate early detection and diagnosis, including validated blood-based biomarkers; invest in the data and evidence needed to advance prevention, with greater attention to the specific biology, risk factors and experiences of women; and commit to global equity so innovation reaches lower- and middle-income countries on terms suited to local needs.

“In much of the world we are asked to plan for dementia without data,” said Lia Tadesse Gebremedhin, former Minister of Health of Ethiopia. “We do not know how many people have it, what is driving it, or what it is costing us, because the studies have not been done in our populations. That gap is not neutral. It means the tools now being built will be validated somewhere else and priced somewhere else, and they will arrive late or not at all. Lower- and middle-income countries should not be the last to benefit from a science we are expected to help build.”

The communiqué traces how international leadership on dementia has passed from hand to hand. France made Alzheimer’s a national and European priority in 2008. The United Kingdom convened the G8 Dementia Summit in 2013 and created the World Dementia Council and catalyzed the annual Lausanne Conference. Japan put ageing and dementia at the centre of its G20 presidency in 2019. The Netherlands has convened regularly. “Each of those moments mattered, yet none has created a sustainable path to prevention applicable throughout the G20 and beyond,” the signatories write. “The G20 has already recognized dementia as a global policy priority. Yet this commitment has not translated into a sustained framework for action. What is missing is continuity, implementation and accountability.”

Signatories as of 5 November 2026 include Nora Berra, MD, former Minister for Seniors and former Minister of Health, France (Initiator); Abdou Fall, former Minister for Health and Medical Prevention, Senegal; Julio Frenk, former Minister of Health of Mexico; Chiril Gaburici, former Prime Minister of Moldova; Conny Helder, MD, former Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Netherlands; Facundo Manes, former member of Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies; Pierre Maudet, Geneva State Councillor for Health and Mobility, Switzerland; Mankeur Ndiaye, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Senegal; Mabingué Ngom, former Regional Director for West and Central Africa, UNFPA; Michel Sidibé, former Minister of Health and Social Affairs of Mali and former Executive Director of UNAIDS; Lia Tadesse Gebremedhin, former Minister of Health of Ethiopia; and former ministers of health from Benin, Djibouti, Guinea, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia.

The call originated at the thirteenth Lausanne Workshop on Alzheimer’s Disease in October 2026, initiated by Nora Berra, former Minister for Seniors and former Minister of Health of France, and remains open for signature. The full text and current signatory list are available at https://www.davosalzheimerscollaborative.org/news-press/g20-communique.

About the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative
The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative was launched at the World Economic Forum in 2021 by the Forum and the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease. It works to make early detection and prevention of Alzheimer’s practical in ordinary health systems rather than specialist centers. Its healthcare system preparedness programs run at more than 70 sites in 19 countries across five continents, and its global cohort studies follow more than 40,000 participants, with a deliberate focus on populations that Alzheimer’s research has historically excluded. Learn more at davosalzheimerscollaborative.org.

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