On 20 May 2014, the European Commission hosted the pre-replenishment conference of the GAVI Alliance in Brussels. This was the opportunity for GAVI to announce its plan to immunise an additional 300 million children by 2020, which would avert future deaths of five to six million people in the same period. In doing so, GAVI aims to increase the proportion of children who are fully protected with WHO recommended vaccines from less than 5% in 2013 to 50% in 2020.
Reaching those ambitious targets will require a strong engagement by GAVI’s partners to mobilise an additional US$ 7.5 billion to be added to the US$ 2 billion already secured for the period 2016-2020[1]. Donors are therefore called to demonstrate their commitments to improve access to immunisation throughout GAVI’s second replenishment period, which was launched this week in Brussels and will culminate with a replenishment conference in Germany early 2015.
A first, encouraging step was the announcement of European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, that the European Union (EU) Institutions will provide €175 million to the GAVI Alliance during the period 2014-2020 equalling a contribution of €25 million per year. Even though European civil society was asking for a bolder commitment of €50 million per year, the pledge of the European Commission more than doubles EU Institutions’ current contribution.
Considering the upcoming European Parliament elections and a change in the European Commission’s leadership, civil society will need to continue monitoring this pledge and ensure that it is programmed and finally disbursed. For this reason, Global Health Advocates and the ACTION partnership have published a donor immunisation scorecard, which aims at holding donors accountable and consistently tracking whether their pledges are being honoured.
According to the scorecard, France risks to be one of the two countries among the 17 analysed that will not meet its 2011-15 commitments. Global Health Advocates therefore call on the French government not to use the economic crisis as an excuse for cutting its overseas development budget and ending programs that contribute to save children’s lives. France must remain a champion in development and global health and GAVI’s replenishment is a crucial opportunity to demonstrate that French commitment in this area has not changed.
In general, the early pledge of the European Commission is a testimony of the trust that the international community puts in the work of GAVI and an encouragement for other donors to scale-up their investments on global efforts to prevent child deaths, of which vaccines are an essential part.
[1] US$ 2 billion are already assured by the International Financing Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm), the Pneumococcal Advanced Market Commitment and other resources.
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