ACT-Accelerator Facilitation Council: Vaccine Manufacturing Working Group - Report to the G20

Overview

The Vaccine Manufacturing Working Group (VMWG) was established by the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerators (ACT-Accelerator) Facilitation Council in May 2021 and mandated by G20 Leaders at their Global Health Summit on 21 May. The VMWG acts as a high-level political forum chaired under the auspices of South Africa and Germany.

The VMWG’s primary objective is to support the COVAX Manufacturing Taskforce's work on ensuring equitable access to vaccines, particularly for low- and middle-income countries through increasing global vaccine manufacturing capacity. The VMWG's workplan covers three areas: 

(i) improve supply inputs to vaccine manufacturing and increase supply of vaccines to COVAX

(ii) increase manufacturing capacity, and 

(iii) foster new and expanded sustainable capacity in LMICs.

The VMWG, in line with the request of the G20 Global Health Summit on 21 May and its mandate to politically support the work of the COVAX Manufacturing Task Force led by Gavi, CEPI and WHO, has published a report directed to G20 leaders, which is based on concrete recommendations to solve the world's manufacturing needs for COVID-19 vaccines.

Increased vaccine manufacturing alone will not end the acute phase of the pandemic, underpinning why the VMWG urges G20 members to support the ACT-Accelerator's pillars work to achieve the global targets on vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and personal protective equipment. 

The recommendations of the VMWG were developed based on its close engagement with relevant stakeholders working towards increasing global production capacities and achieving equitable access, like the COVAX Manufacturing Taskforce, WTO and other major vaccine initiatives.