The UK’s work with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
The UK’s major aid investment in Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is playing a pivotal role in making sure children in the world’s poorest countries are vaccinated against disease – but the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic risks “crowding out” routine immunisation work.
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ICAI published this information note in June 2020 and the International Development Committee held a hearing on the issues raised in the same month.
Summary
Launched in 2000 at the World Economic Forum, Gavi is a public-private partnership of national governments, multilateral agencies, non-governmental organisations and the private sector to vaccinate children in the world’s poorest countries.
Since its inception, Gavi has helped to vaccinate more than 760 million children, preventing more than 13 million deaths worldwide from illnesses such as hepatitis, pneumonia, measles, meningitis, diarrhoea, rubella, yellow fever, liver cancer and cervical cancer. It helps partner countries to pay for vaccines and organise national immunisation programmes and plays a key role in shaping the global market for vaccines.
To date the UK has committed £4 billion to Gavi, making it Gavi’s largest funder. The UK has announced that it will contribute £1.65 billion across 2021 to 2025 (the equivalent to £330m a year), including existing pledges made during the previous funding period.
This information note set out to provide a factual account of the UK’s financial and strategic engagement with the vaccine alliance, to coincide with the virtual replenishment conference in June 2020. This report is not evaluative and does not make any recommendations, however it does recommend eight lines of future enquiry.
Sustainable Development Goals
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals relevant to this review are:
