Why invest in GAVI?

Four million future deaths can be averted by 2015 through increased investment in vaccines

GAVI's first decade has averted over five million future deaths. By 2015, GAVI has the potential to immunise 240 million children and avert an additional four million future deaths with its support for a series of life-saving vaccines that have yet to reach the world's poorest countries.The new offensive will target:

• the two biggest killers of children, pneumonia and diarrhoea, through accelerating the introduction of pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines;
• deadly meningitis epidemics supporting a new vaccine against meningitis A;
• the introduction of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines that protect women against cervical cancer, and other prioritised vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, rubella and typhoid;
• strengthened routine immunisation programmes as part of integrated health services for women and children.

The world cannot afford to miss the opportunity to deliver life-saving vaccines against the two biggest child killers

Everything is in place for GAVI to protect children from pneumonia and diarrhoea and help the world move toward achieving Millennium Development Goal four - reducing child mortality by two-thirds before 2015:

• GAVI's programme support offers new and life-saving vaccines against pneumococcal and rotavirus disease;
• Two-thirds of GAVI’s approved programmes in late 2011 involved the introduction of the pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines; country applications approved for rotavirus vaccines increased nine-fold and nearly doubled for pneumococcal vaccines;
• By mid-2012, 18 developing countries had already started to introduce the pneumococcal vaccine with GAVI support; by the end of 2011, Ghana, Rwanda and Sudan had become the first African nations to introduce rotavirus vaccine with GAVI support.

GAVI support counts 100% towards G8 mother-child health commitments

In June 2010, the G8 reviewed the programmes of all major multilateral agencies to calculate how much core contributions to these agencies would impact on the Muskoka Initiative for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. They concluded that donor investments in GAVI would count 100%.

Expanded immunisation coverage for children was ranked among the top five most cost-effective solutions to major global challenges by Copenhagen Consensus (2008), an international think tank.

Poor children have the same right to access life-saving vaccines as children from wealthier backgrounds

Yet, on average, 15 years separate a vaccine's discovery and its introduction in low-income countries. This means 19 million of all children worldwide do not receive the life-saving vaccines that are taken for granted on vaccination cards in most industralised countries. Investing in GAVI and vaccines will help redress this inequity.

The United Kingdom Multilateral Aid Review 2011, Australian Multilateral Aid Assessment and the Swedish Assessment all places GAVI at the top of multilateral development organisations for value for money, organisational strengths and contribution to development

• The GAVI business model fosters a competitive vaccine market by pooling demand from developing countries and providing predictable financing to meet demand, attracting new manufacturers from emerging economies and increasing competition to drive down prices;
• GAVI's co-financing scheme has increased country ownership of its support programmes;
• GAVI support is aligned with national immunisation and health plans in line with the principles of aid effectiveness; the Health Systems Funding Platform is harmonising health system support;
• GAVI's success is driven by an inclusive partnership with the key stakeholders in global immunisation;
• GAVI has pioneered new ways of financing development: the International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) leverages long-term donor commitments to issue bonds on the capital markets, contributing to the certainty of funding that underpins long-term vaccine programmes; the pneumococcal Advance Market Commitment (AMC) has accelerated the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines in developing countries within months of their introduction in industrialised countries and at lower prices .