Excellencies, Honourable Ministers, distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
Together with the President of the European Commission, Her Excellency Dr Ursula von der Leyen, it is my great honour to welcome you to this first meeting of the Facilitation Council of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator - the ACT Accelerator.
I would now like to give the floor to President von der Leyen for her opening statement. But before I do, I would first like to highlight the invaluable role she and the European Commission have played during the start-up phase of the ACT Accelerator.
I was honoured to co-launch the ACT Accelerator with you in April, with a shared vision of equitable access to essential tools to combat COVID-19. The European Commission’s efforts under your leadership have been critical in moving forward this agenda.
Thank you for your leadership and continued support for this common cause, and your inspiring demonstration of global solidarity.
President von der Leyen, you have the floor.
[President von der Leyen addressed the meeting]
Thank you, President von der Leyen.
I would now like to welcome the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and ask him to say a few words.
Mr Secretary-General, the pandemic has demonstrated why, more than ever, the world needs the United Nations. Faced with a common threat, we need a common response.
WHO has played a leading role, but because the pandemic is so much more than a health crisis, it has demanded the full attention of the entire UN system.
Thank you for your leadership in harnessing the power of the UN in support of the overall coordination of the international response through WHO, through the UN Crisis Management Team, the Supply Chain Task Force, the Global Humanitarian Response Plan and more.
Thank you for your leadership, and Mr Secretary-General, you have the floor.
[Secretary-General Guterres addressed the meeting]
Thank you, Secretary-General, for your leadership, your commitment to be with us and to finding a global solution to the COVID-19 crisis and for adding your voice to this important launch to the next scale up phase of the ACT-Accelerator. Again, thank you so much for your leadership.
It is now my honour to introduce Norway and South Africa as the co-Chairs of the Facilitation Council. These two countries will be critical to leading and guiding the work of the Council and the ACT Accelerator.
We are honoured to have at this inaugural meeting His Excellency the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Her Excellency the Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg.
I would like to invite each of them to say a few words in acceptance of this important role that they have taken on with such energy.
Starting with President Ramaphosa, your leadership, both as the Chair of the African Union, and as leader of one of the world’s major market-shaping countries, has been hugely important in advocating for the ACT Accelerator.
You have supported the vision and objectives of the ACT Accelerator since its launch, and been a champion for the need to invest in health systems.
Thank you for your commitment to champion the ACT Accelerator to ensure that in deploying these lifesaving tools, no one is left behind.
Your Excellency President Ramaphosa, you have the floor.
[President Ramaphosa addressed the meeting]
Thank you, President Ramaphosa.
Moving now to our other co-Chair; under Prime Minister Solberg’s leadership, Norway has been one of the founding donors of the ACT Accelerator and has been crucial to its success so far.
Prime Minister, you have supported the vision and objectives of the ACT Accelerator since its launch, and are a champion for gender equality and women’s health.
Thank you also for Norway’s vision and leadership in establishing and hosting the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations – CEPI – which is now playing a vital role in supporting the development of vaccines.
Your belief that together we can move mountains and combat this global health crisis in a united way has been a beacon for the world.
In this spirit of togetherness and solidarity, I welcome you as co-chair of this ACT Facilitation Council.
Your Excellency, Prime Minister Solberg, you have the floor.
[Prime Minister Solberg addressed the meeting]
Thank you, Your Excellency.
We are delighted to have two strong co-Chairs to lead the work of the ACT Accelerator Facilitation Council.
We are also honoured to have here with us today His Excellency President Kagame of Rwanda, and the Chair of NEPAD, to make some opening remarks to inaugurate the first Council meeting.
Your Excellency, you too have supported the vision and objectives of the ACT Accelerator since its launch, and alongside President Ramaphosa, you have been at the forefront of leading Africa’s response to COVID-19.
You have previously said that we live in a time of unprecedented political opportunity to anchor the tremendous global public health gains of past generations in national health systems that are both sustainably-financed and people-centred.
That statement rings true now more than ever.
Your Excellency, President Kagame, welcome. You have the floor.
[President Kagame addressed the meeting]
Thank you, President Kagame, for joining us today.
Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends,
The speed at which vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics have been developed for COVID-19 is nothing short of astonishing.
It is a testament to the incredible advances in science and technology the world has made in recent years.
We are now in the process of establishing a consensus on the international allocation of these products.
But the ACT Accelerator will not be able to deliver on its goals without a significant increase in funding, as has been said by Secretary-General António Guterres.
The 2.7 billion US dollars it has received to date has been generous and has enabled the robust start-up phase.
But this is less than 10 percent of the overall needs.
At the same time, bilateral vaccine deals and vaccine nationalism could compromise equitable access and hold up progress for all countries in bringing the COVID-19 pandemic to an end.
In the face of these challenges, the case for a united, global effort is even stronger than when the ACT Accelerator was launched.
Between now and the end of the year we have a limited window of opportunity to scale-up the ACT Accelerator and fully enable the equitable allocation framework.
Currently, the ACT Accelerator is supporting research into promising vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
But we need to rapidly scale up our clinical trials, manufacturing, licensing and regulation capacity so that these products can get to people and start saving lives.
The Facilitation Council is critical to ensuring global leadership and advocacy for the ACT Accelerator.
We are relying on you to provide high-level advice for implementing the pillars of the ACT Accelerator, and for guiding us towards fruitful interactions with our principals and partners.
We face a monumental challenge. Your political leadership is critical in the months ahead.
I thank you once again for joining this Council.
With that, I would like to thank those of you listening in on line and hand over to the Ministerial co-Chairs, the Minister of Health of South Africa, Dr Zweli Mkhize, and the Minister of International Development of Norway, Mr Dag Inge Ulstein, to lead us through the remainder of the Ministerial segment of the meeting.