Vaccine Alliance celebrates 20 years, saving 13 million lives

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in 2000, has contributed to the immunization of 760 million children, saving more than 13 million lives.

In 2000, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance was launched at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, with an initial pledge of $750 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gavi brings together key influencers from the public and private sectors to save children’s lives and protect the population’s health by increasing the equitable use of vaccines in lower-income countries. To date, the Vaccine Alliance has contributed to the immunization of 760 million children, saving more than 13 million lives.

Progress on immunizing the world’s children ground to a halt in the 1990s. Other donor priorities took precedence, and there was little commercial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to provide newer vaccines to the developing world.

By the year 2000, children in poorer countries were receiving just half the vaccines provided to children in the developed world. Nearly 30 million children were not fully immunized. Despite new life-saving vaccines being made available, virtually none were reaching children in developing countries due to the cost.

The mission behind Gavi was a new approach to the global vaccination challenge, based on the innovative Forum concept of multistakeholder collaboration.

The aim of Gavi is to make vaccines more accessible and affordable for all children, wherever they live in the world. The alliance launched at Davos created multistakeholder cooperation to ultimately save more lives, bringing together the best of what key UN agencies, governments, the vaccine industry, the private sector and civil society had to offer, in order to improve childhood immunization in developing countries and accelerate access to new vaccines.

The work of the Vaccine Alliance helps developing countries reach the point where they can pay for and manage their own vaccination programmes. Sixteen countries – Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Bolivia, Cuba, Georgia, Guyana, Honduras, Indonesia, Kiribati, Moldova, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste and Ukraine – have started to finance all the vaccines introduced through Gavi support.

In 2018, we announced that Gavi became the first international non-profit organization to partner with the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution – a collaboration set to maximize emerging technologies to accelerate Gavi’s impact globally.

As the Vaccine Alliance celebrated its 20th anniversary in Davos in 2020, its co-financing model has prevailed, helping vaccinate 760 million children and saving more than 13 million lives.

The World Economic Forum is inviting members and partners to help shape the future of health and healthcare globally through initiatives like the Vaccine Alliance. Be part of providing a unifying framework to enable people to lead healthier lives and access the care they need to fulfil their potential.

Our Platform for Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare transforms the continuum of care – from prevention to diagnosis, treatment, cure and maintenance of health – to enable people to lead healthier lives and access the care they need to fulfil their potential.