• Today G7 leaders announced a doubling of funding for Gavi COVAX AMC to support lower-income economies obtain life-saving vaccines against COVID-19, ensuring greater equity in fighting to end the acute phase of the pandemic.

  • New funding from the European Union, Germany and the United States will allow COVAX, the international COVID-19 vaccine mechanism, to secure more doses and further diversify its vaccine portfolio, advancing its goal to roll out at least 1.3 billion vaccine doses in world’s poorest economies in the next few months.

  • This comes alongside a number of recent pledges, including a pledge announced today by Ireland.

  • The announcement also includes securing doses for COVAX to support vital humanitarian work in places where populations face emergencies.

  • In addition, the UK and France announced commitments to share vaccine doses with lower-income economies, joining a number of other countries expressing the same goal, to further accelerate a coordinated international response and help put an end to the pandemic globally.


Geneva, 19 February 2021 – The virtual G7 Early Leaders’ Summit event saw the announcement of major new funding, including new pledges of EUR 980 million from Germany and EUR 500 million from the European Union, and an allocation of US$ 2 billion in funding by the United States for 2021, with an additional US$ 2 billion planned over 2021-2022. A number of other recent pledges bring funds raised for Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (Gavi COVAX AMC), the funding mechanism to finance doses of COVID-19 vaccines for 92 lower-income economies within the COVAX Facility, to a total of US$ 6.3 billion. In addition, the United Kingdom announced it would be sharing surplus doses with COVAX, providing an additional source of vaccines for the world.

It comes at a time when COVAX – co-led by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), alongside key delivery partner UNICEF – is preparing to begin distributing vaccines around the world. With these new contributions, Gavi is getting closer to achieving its initial objective to provide at least 1.3bn doses for the most vulnerable populations in the poorest economies in the world. 

Building on this first success and initial layer of global protection within reach, COVAX can now start working with the international community to bring global health security to the next level, ensuring a global response against virus mutations and further amplifying vaccine roll out. With continued global solidarity, another half a billion additional doses could be within reach in 2021, bringing the total to 1.8bn.

José Manuel Barroso, Chair of the Gavi Board and former European Commission President, thanked G7 leaders present at the announcement: “Global leadership has demonstrated that it recognises the importance of a cooperative, multilateral approach to ending this pandemic as well as the power of vaccines to restore lives, and economies, to normal.”

COVAX AMC Engagement Group co-chair Dr. Lia Tadesse, Minister of Health of Ethiopia, stressed: "We are closer than ever to ending this pandemic, and we need global solidarity to get us over the finish line. These new funding commitments will allow COVAX to deliver doses to communities that need them the most, so that we can save lives, restore livelihoods and build back stronger.”

GERMANY ANNOUNCES LARGEST SINGLE PLEDGE TO SUPPORT GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced an additional EUR 980 million contribution to COVAX at the virtual G7 Early Leaders’ Summit. This unprecedented commitment by Germany is the country’s largest single pledge to support global health security. It comes alongside a broader German commitment to support the international effort to end COVID-19, with a significant additional funding pledge to the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. Alongside support for the Gavi COVAX AMC, new German funding will also support reinforcement of diagnostics, therapeutics and health systems to combat COVID-19 around the world – because no-one is safe until everyone is safe.

Germany has long been a major supporter of Gavi, with a total of EUR 1.36 billion in contributions and pledges of direct funding for Gavi’s core mandate between 2006 and 2025. Today’s announcement of an additional EUR 980 million to COVAX builds on a strong partnership with Gavi.

Commenting on this announcement, German Federal Economic Cooperation and Development Minister Gerd Müller said: “The commitment made by Germany at the G7 Summit sends an important message: we will either beat COVID-19 worldwide or not at all. With nearly one billion euros of the funding committed, Germany will be supporting Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The German Chancellor is leading the way and conveying this important message of international solidarity. A global vaccination campaign is the only road out of the pandemic! It must not fail for lack of financing. Both for humanitarian reasons and in our own interest. Because it will not be enough to control the spread of the disease only within Europe. Otherwise it will come back – possibly in even more dangerous form.”

“So far, however, only 0.5 per cent of vaccinations have taken place in the poorest countries, Müller continued. “The aim is for at least 20 per cent of the population in the developing countries to be vaccinated by the end of the year. But the funding for that has not yet been secured, not even after the G7 summit. The G20 and the EU must also increase their efforts. More needs to be done internationally. Because vaccines are a global good. We need to ensure that those people in the developing countries who have been hardest hit are also sufficiently vaccinated.”

Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, added: “This support for the Gavi COVAX AMC shows great commitment to equitable, global access to COVID-19 vaccines and is a major boost to our efforts to end the acute phase of the pandemic. We thank G7 countries, and particularly Germany and the United States, as well as the EU, for this strong leadership in the fields of global health and global health security.”

EUROPEAN UNION PLEDGES FOR THE GAVI COVAX AMC

At the G7 virtual leaders’ meeting, President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen announced an additional EUR 500 million pledge to the Gavi COVAX AMC, which includes EUR 300 million in grant funding from the European Commission and EUR 200 million in guarantees through the European Investment Bank (EIB). This is in addition to EUR 100 million already pledged by the European Commission and EUR 400 million in guarantees from the EIB in December 2020. This brings the Commission’s financial support to COVAX to EUR 1 billion as part of Team Europe’s considerable support to the COVAX AMC.

Jutta Urpilainen, Commissioner for International Partnerships, added: “We are in a race against the virus and COVAX is our best hope that all our partners, in Africa and elsewhere, have access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. The EU has been leading efforts in international fora, such as the G20 and G7, to guarantee that collectively we ensure that COVID-19 vaccines become a global public good. This is why today we are doubling to 1 billion euros. our support to COVAX”.

2021 UNITED STATES FUNDING FOR GAVI COVAX AMC

Using funds appropriated by a bipartisan Congressional vote in December 2020, the United States will provide an initial US$ 2 billion contribution to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment, the innovative financing instrument of the COVAX Facility, which supports access to safe and effective vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income economies. The United States will also take a leadership role in galvanizing further global contributions to COVAX by releasing an additional US$ 2 billion through 2021 and 2022. In close cooperation with Gavi, this additional $2 billion in funding will serve to expand COVAX’s reach.

A White House fact sheet on the announcement emphasised the U.S. commitment to catalyze other donors: "We also call on our G7 and other partners to work alongside Gavi, to bring in billions more in resources to support global COVID-19 vaccination, and to target urgent vaccine manufacturing, supply, and delivery needs."

IRELAND PLEDGES FUNDING FOR COVAX

Ireland also announced EUR 4 million in funding for COVAX today. Irish Minister of State for Overseas Development Aid and Diaspora Colm Brophy TD added: “Ireland is delighted to allocate €4 million to the COVAX Facility, part of at least €50 million in Irish Aid support to global public health this year.  This will support developing countries, who most need vaccines and can least afford them, secure their share of global supply.”

SIGNIFICANT ADDITIONAL INTERNATIONAL FUNDING FOR THE GAVI COVAX AMC

These new announcements come on top of other recent pledges to Gavi’s COVAX AMC from a number of governments. These include additional pledges from Japan (US$ 70m), the Netherlands (EUR 25m) and Sweden (SEK100m) and new commitments from the Austrian Development Cooperation (EUR 2.4m), Belgium (EUR 4m), Iceland (ISK250m) and Luxembourg (EUR 1m).  
 
The Thistledown Foundation, a private charitable foundation established in late 2019 by Tobias Lütke and Fiona McKean, has also pledged CAD 5 million to Gavi’s COVAX AMC to ensure equitable access of COVID-19 vaccines.

UK AND FRENCH COMMITMENT TO SHARE SURPLUS DOSES WITH COVAX FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The UK Government has announced that the UK will share the majority of any future surplus coronavirus vaccines from its supply with the COVAX procurement pool to support developing countries, in addition to the UK’s £548 million existing funding for the COVAX AMC. This commitment allows the COVAX Facility to access an additional source of doses for participating economies. 
 
This comes alongside a call by French President Emmanuel Macron for higher-income countries to reserve a percentage of their vaccine doses for lower-income economies. Gavi welcomes this renewed momentum created by President Macron, as dose sharing by countries in a position to do so can potentially add significant volumes of vaccines to the global effort to ending the acute phase of the pandemic. In addition to France and Norway as part of Team Europe, Canada has made a similar commitment.

Notes to editors

The latest list of pledges made to the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment is available here.

About COVAX

COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is co-led by CEPI, Gavi and WHO – working in partnership with developed and developing country vaccine manufacturers, UNICEF, the World Bank, and others. It is the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries.

CEPI is leading on the COVAX vaccine research and development portfolio, investing in R&D across a variety of promising candidates, with the goal to support development of three safe and effective vaccines which can be made available to countries participating in the COVAX Facility. As part of this work, CEPI has secured first right of refusal to potentially over one billion doses for the COVAX Facility to a number of candidates, and made strategic investments in vaccine manufacturing, which includes reserving capacity to manufacture doses of COVAX vaccines at a network of facilities, and securing glass vials to hold 2 billion doses of vaccine. CEPI is also investing in the ‘next generation’ of vaccine candidates, which will give the world additional options to control COVID-19 in the future.  

Gavi is leading on procurement and delivery for COVAX, coordinating the design and implementation of the COVAX Facility and the COVAX AMC and working with Alliance partners UNICEF and WHO, along with governments, on country readiness and delivery. The COVAX Facility is the global pooled procurement mechanism for COVID-19 vaccines through which COVAX will ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for all 190 participating economies, using an allocation framework formulated by WHO. The COVAX Facility will do this by pooling buying power from participating economies and providing volume guarantees across a range of promising vaccine candidates. The Gavi COVAX AMC is the financing mechanism that will support the participation of 92 low- and middle-income countries in the Facility, enabling access to donor-funded doses of safe and effective vaccines. UNICEF and the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) will be acting as procurement coordinators for the COVAX Facility, helping deliver vaccines to all participants.

WHO has multiple roles within the COVAX: among other things it supports countries as they prepare to receive and administer vaccines and does so in partnership with UNICEF. It provides normative guidance on vaccine policy, regulation, safety, R&D, allocation, and country readiness and delivery. Its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization develops evidence-based immunization policy recommendations. Its Emergency Use Listing (EUL)/prequalification programmes ensure harmonized review and authorization across member states. It provides global coordination and member state support on vaccine safety monitoring. It developed the target product profiles for COVID-19 vaccines and provides R&D technical coordination. Along with COVAX partners, it is developing a no-fault compensation scheme for indemnification and liability issues. COVAX is part of the Act accelerator which WHO launched with partners in 2020.

About ACT-Accelerator

The Access to COVID-19 Tools ACT-Accelerator, is a new, ground-breaking global collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. It was set up in response to a call from G20 leaders in March and launched by the WHO, European Commission, France and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in April 2020.

The ACT-Accelerator is not a decision-making body or a new organisation, but works to speed up collaborative efforts among existing organisations to end the pandemic. It is a framework for collaboration that has been designed to bring key players around the table with the goal of ending the pandemic as quickly as possible through the accelerated development, equitable allocation, and scaled up delivery of tests, treatments and vaccines, thereby protecting health systems and restoring societies and economies in the near term. It draws on the experience of leading global health organisations which are tackling the world’s toughest health challenges, and who, by working together, are able to unlock new and more ambitious results against COVID-19. Its members share a commitment to ensure all people have access to all the tools needed to defeat COVID-19 and to work with unprecedented levels of partnership to achieve it.

The ACT-Accelerator has four areas of work: diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and the health system connector. Cross-cutting all of these is the workstream on Access & Allocation.

About Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate half the world’s children against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation – over 822 million children – and prevented more than 14 million deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 lower-income countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningitis and yellow fever vaccines. After two decades of progress, Gavi is now focused on protecting the next generation and reaching the unvaccinated children still being left behind, employing innovative finance and the latest technology – from drones to biometrics – to save millions more lives, prevent outbreaks before they can spread and help countries on the road to self-sufficiency. Learn more at www.gavi.org and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

The Vaccine Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. View the full list of donor governments and other leading organizations that fund Gavi’s work here.

Media Contacts

Evan O’Connell, Gavi
+33 6 17 57 21 26
eoconnell@gavi.org

Meg Sharafudeen, Gavi
+41 79 711 5554
msharafudeen@gavi.org

Iryna Mazur, Gavi
+41 79 429 3671
imazur@gavi.org

Laura Shevlin, Gavi
+41 79 529 92 87
lshevlin@gavi.org

 

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