Dear John, dear Hugh, distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all of you, and thank you for joining us today.
I’d like to thank the International Chamber of Commerce and Global Citizen for co-hosting today’s event, with WHO.
And thank you to both organizations for your partnership and support over the past year.
As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic has upended health systems, societies, economies and businesses.
More than 100 million cases have now been reported to WHO, and over 2 million people have lost their lives. Very tragic.
More cases were reported in the past month than during the first six months of the pandemic.
These are not just numbers, they’re people: someone’s parent; someone’s partner; someone’s child.
The development and approval of safe and effective vaccines less than a year after the emergence of a new virus is providing a much-needed source of hope.
The challenge we face now is to ensure vaccines are a source of hope for all, not hope for some.
In April last year, WHO joined forces with Gavi, the Global Fund, CEPI and many other partners to launch the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, including the COVAX vaccines pillar.
Our aim was to develop vaccines, tests and treatments fast, and to distribute them fairly.
But as we speak, rich countries are rolling out vaccines to their citizens, while the world’s least developed countries are left waiting.
More than 90% of countries now rolling out vaccines are high- or upper-middle income countries. Seventy-five percent of doses have been deployed in only ten countries.
We understand why governments want to protect their own people first. But sharing vaccines equitably is not just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing to do strategically and economically.
First, the longer the virus continues to circulate, the more chance it has to mutate, and potentially become resistant to current tests, treatments and vaccines.
In other words, we could end up back at square one. The pressure on economies, businesses and jobs will remain intense.
Second, many of your businesses have global operations that rely on global supply chains.
In our global village, if the virus continues to circulate, those operations and supply chains will continue to be disrupted and the economic recovery will be delayed.
We are now at a critical juncture.
COVAX has secured access to 2 billion doses of vaccines, with options for a further 1 billion doses.
But we face a gap of US$ 27 billion to fully fund the ACT Accelerator for this year.
John Denton has described that as a “rounding error” in the context of the massive stimulus packages rolled out in G20 countries.
Lord Jim O’Neill calls fully funding the ACT Accelerator a “no brainer”.
So today I have three requests:
First, we need your financial support.
WHO and our partners have received generous contributions from governments, but businesses can also contribute. Already, 12% of support for the ACT Accelerator has come from the private sector. We welcome contributions through the WHO Foundation and the United Nations Foundation’s Act Together Fund, or directly to our partners.
Supporting the ACT Accelerator is not charity, it’s an investment in controlling the pandemic, restoring confidence and rebooting the global economy.
And I would like to use this opportunity to introduce the first CEO of the WHO Foundation, Anil Soni, and I hope it will be easy for the private sector to fund through the WHO Foundation
Second, we need your logistical support.
Many of your businesses have assets, supplies and experience that could be extremely valuable as we roll out vaccines globally.
And third, we need your political support.
Our aim is to ensure that vaccination of health workers and older people is underway in all countries within the first 100 days of this year.
To achieve that, we are asking governments that have already received deliveries of vaccines to vaccinate their health workers and older people, and share excess doses with COVAX so other countries can do the same.
But we also understand that governments are under political pressure to put their own people first.
So we need the business community to use your influence to convince governments that sharing doses is the best way to control the pandemic globally, restore confidence and reboot the global economic recovery.
Until we end the pandemic everywhere, we will not end it anywhere.
We must also remember that vaccines alone will not end this pandemic.
We can all help to keep ourselves and each other safe with proven public health measures, like physical distancing, avoiding crowds, hand hygiene, masks, ventilation and more.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we’re all in this together.
I thank you, and thank you so much Hugh and back to you.