Most of the health material in the archive is scattered. This thread is not. It is a single document lineage — the Nexus Centre for peace and health — traceable through named drafts, named revisions and named staff, from concept to convening.
Document text is from a PII-redacted compilation covering 94.1% of released documents. Quotations should be checked against the linked original.
Section 01
August 2012: The Concept
On 2 August 2012, IPI’s Walter Kemp sent his director a document. "Terje, Please find attached the concept, as discussed." Copied: Francesco Mancini.
Within a day Terje Rød-Larsen forwarded it to Epstein. Hours later Epstein replied: "well done, but you must treat this as highly higly confidential.. too early will ruin it."
Three revisions followed in eight days. On 17 August, Mancini reported back: "As discussed attached the revised versions. All references to t[he foundation have been deleted]" — with a concept note, a one-pager, and talking points.
When the files failed to open, an IPI staffer routed them through Epstein’s assistant: "Please find attached files for Mr. Jeffrey Epstein from Terje." He was not cc’d. He was a destination.
Walter Kemp — author
Francesco Mancini — revisions
Andrea Pfanzelter
Camilla Reksten-Monsen
Johanna Borstner
Jilla Moazami
Terje Rød-Larsen — president
Seventeen of the 75 documents are sent by Rød-Larsen himself.
Nexus Center concept.docxpeace and health rev. 2.docx, Notes on Center related to peace and health.docx, Nexus Center concept 160812 (2).docxNexus Center Concept Note August 2012.pdf, a one-pager, and Talking Points on Nexus Center.docxNexus_Center_5-yr_workplan.pdfSection 02
2013–2014: What It Became
The concept did not stay still. It was repeatedly re-pointed at whatever was current.
In February 2013 it extends to Syria, marked Importance: high. In March, a participant list and agenda. By December, revision 260813 rev. 2.
Polio, then Syria, then Ebola, then pandemics. That sequence is the evolution: a concept funded as a polio line item became a Syria proposal, was rewritten for Ebola, and ended as a global pandemic-preparedness conference. The same document, the same authors, the same recipient — rewritten around whichever crisis could carry it.
FINAL_Paxlist.doc, FINAL_Concept Note and Agenda.doc — a participant list and agendaBMGF-IPI — Polio Eradication and Peace Health.pdf, plus Geneva and Luxembourg meeting notesSection 04
The Gates Foundation Channel
The concept needed money, and in 2013 it found some. The negotiation is documented in full — and Epstein is on every stage of it.
Gates Foundation programme officer Melissa Covelli West set the objectives: "Reduce number of inaccessible children to zero" and "Create safety for polio vaccinators/health workers and their security teams." What the Foundation wanted from IPI was not medicine. It was political access: "research, analysis and insights of the political environment in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Northern Nigeria, and Somalia… Helping identify potential influencers/high-level contacts… Convening foreign ministers… at UNGA."
The Foundation decided otherwise. On 20 September, Amy Carter wrote that the polio team had met Gates, who "fully concurred" — $5 million over three years in two grants, the second covering "Polio, as well as the Peace and Health, and Middle East work… particularly in Somalia." Epstein, forwarded the history in October: "its simple 5 million over three years. many ways to split it."
By May 2015 the relationship had its own momentum. Pfanzelter reported that Christopher Elias, the Foundation’s president of Global Development, found IPI’s security information "very helpful," was "aware, and appreciative, of the work we have done in Nigeria and Somalia," and "suggested that you raise the issue with Mr. Gates."
Section 05
How Polio Became Pandemic Preparedness
The progression is visible in the documents themselves, and it is not a reinterpretation after the fact. The same paper was rewritten at each stage.
Stage one — access. Polio eradication stalled because vaccinators were being killed and armed groups treated them as spies. IPI’s value to the Foundation was negotiating that access.
Stage two — the general principle. Vaccination as ceasefire: the El Salvador "days of tranquillity." Health as an instrument of peace, not merely its beneficiary. That is the Nexus Centre concept.
Stage four — the policy ambition. By 2015 the language had changed again: a "global defence system related to future pandemics," "strictly policy oriented, towards a reform of the current system and to setting up possible new mechanism for resilience and the management of future crises."
Four years, one institution, one document lineage — from getting vaccinators into Waziristan to reforming the multilateral system.
2012 · Polio access and security
2013 · Political and diplomatic analysis — Afghanistan, Pakistan, N. Nigeria, Somalia
2013–14 · "Peace & Health" as a funded category
Sep 2014 · Revised for Ebola
2015 · Pandemic preparedness and health-security policy
IPI’s own pitch credited the idea to Gates: "The idea springs out of your thinking on this matter."
Not to Epstein. Whatever his role in funding and presentation, the initiative was attributed elsewhere in the document that sought to fund it.
It does not establish that Epstein designed that progression. The evolution tracks real events — a stalled eradication campaign, then Ebola — and the institution had its own reasons at every stage. Unresolved
Section 03
The Gates Funding Channel
The Nexus Centre was never funded on its own. It sat inside a larger negotiation between the Gates Foundation and IPI — and the documents show what that money was actually for.
In July 2013 the Foundation’s Melissa Covelli West set out the objectives: "Reduce number of inaccessible children to zero" and "Create safety for polio vaccinators/health workers and their security teams." What it wanted from IPI was not medicine. It was access: "research, analysis and insights of the political environment in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Northern Nigeria, and Somalia… Helping identify potential influencers/high-level contacts… Convening foreign ministers and/or others at UNGA."
The Foundation decided otherwise. On 20 September, Amy Carter wrote that the polio team had met Gates and "Bill fully concurred" with $5M over three years in two grants — general operating support, and "Project Support for Polio, as well as the Peace and Health, and Middle East work."
That second grant is where Nexus lived. "Peace and Health" was a funded line item inside a polio grant — which is why the concept paper kept being rewritten to fit whatever crisis was current.
And it had competition. Carter noted the details still needed discussion "to ensure we strike the right balance between your existing and new initiatives (e.g. new office in Bahrain) and some of the specific work we’d like done in polio on the analytics, particularly in Somalia where we have the greatest current gaps."
IPI’s new Manama office was being weighed against Somalia polio analytics in the same paragraph. The institute was expanding into the Gulf while the Foundation wanted its attention on the Horn of Africa. No document places the Nexus Centre in Bahrain — the office appears here as a competing call on the same grant. Location never established
Section 06
September 2015: The Palais des Nations
The concept became an event.
On 20 March 2015 Epstein forwarded an email headed "Preparing for pandemics," carrying 18032015_Geneva_meeting_on_pandemics_Agenda.docx.
On 11 June, IPI’s Camilla Reksten-Monsen wrote to him: "Thanks, Jeff that makes sense! How about the below?" — then a draft announcement naming Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, and Peter Maurer, President of the ICRC, as confirmed speakers.
On 12 September 2015, "Preparing for Pandemics: Lessons Learned for More Effective Responses" convened at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Rød-Larsen gave the opening remarks. Epstein’s assistant attended on an IPI badge.
Three years and one month from a draft on a director’s desk to the UN’s European headquarters — with a private individual copied at every stage.
18032015_Geneva_meeting_on_pandemics_Agenda.docxSection 07
And Then It Stops
After September 2015 the thread ends. No further Nexus Centre draft, no follow-up conference, no continuation correspondence has been located in the released record. Searched, not located
The ordinary explanations are sufficient and should be stated first. The conference happened; projects conclude. Epstein’s correspondence with Rød-Larsen continues on other subjects. Total corpus volume declines after 2013 across every topic. Institutional follow-up would sit in IPI’s records, not a private individual’s inbox.
What this archive cannot tell us is whether the Nexus Centre was ever built, whether the $15 million moved, or what became of the five-year workplan whose fifth year would have fallen in 2018. Those answers are in institutional archives, not this one.
That the Nexus Centre was funded or founded. We hold concepts, revisions, a proposal and a figure — not an outcome.
And nothing indicates that Margaret Chan, Peter Maurer or any conference participant knew of Epstein’s role in the initiative that produced it.
Section 08