The Gates Foundation has announced a $1.6 billion commitment to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, over the next five years to help deliver lifesaving vaccines to children in the world’s most vulnerable communities.
This was disclosed on the foundation’s website on Tuesday.
The announcement comes amid deep cuts to global aid budgets, which threaten to reverse decades of progress in child survival.
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The chair of the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates warned that for the first time in decades, the number of kids dying around the world will likely go up this year instead of down because of massive cuts to foreign aid.
“That is a tragedy,” Mr Gates said, noting that fully funding Gavi is the single most powerful step to take to stop the tragedy.
The Gates Foundation said international development programmes have been severely impacted by declining budgets and shifting political priorities.
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It explained that after years of stagnation, foreign assistance plummeted this year, putting at risk the hard-won progress in child survival and public health made over the last 25 years.
“The legacy of our generation cannot be that we looked away as millions of poor children died of preventable causes,” Mr Gates said.
“The world now has affordable, effective, proven tools that save lives. Wealthy nations should fully fund Gavi and the Global Fund, the organisations created to get those products to the people who need them.”
Commitments
The pledge was made ahead of the Global Summit: Health & Prosperity through Immunisation, a pledging event for Gavi taking place on 25 June in Brussels, co-hosted by the European Union and the Gates Foundation.
At the summit, Gates will join global leaders, many of whom are expected to announce new commitments to Gavi’s mission.
The Foundation noted that early donor pledges to Gavi reflect broad support for immunisation as a high-impact investment, as well as confidence in multilateral collaboration to accelerate progress on global health.
Since 2000, the Gates Foundation said it has committed more than $30.6 billion to advance vaccines—investing in their discovery, development, and distribution.
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Of this, $7.7 billion has been directed to Gavi, making it the foundation’s largest grantee.
Today’s renewed commitment to Gavi comes on the heels of the foundation’s 25th anniversary announcement that it will spend $200 billion over the next 20 years to accelerate its mission to help all people live healthy, productive lives.
During this time, the foundation said it will work together with its partners to make as much progress as possible towards three primary goals: Ending preventable deaths of mothers and babies; preventing deadly infectious diseases in the next generation; lifting millions out of poverty by expanding opportunities.
Additional areas of focus according to the foundation, is to continue helping US students have pathways to opportunity; strengthening digital public infrastructure; applying new uses of artificial intelligence in health, education, and agriculture; and advancing gender equality to help women access education, health care, and financial services.
GAVI
Since its launch 25 years ago, with initial support from the Gates Foundation and a group of founding partners, Gavi has helped cut child mortality in half.
It has vaccinated more than 1.1 billion children across 78 low-income countries, preventing nearly 19 million deaths from diseases like measles, pneumonia, and diarrhea.
“Despite that progress, one in five children still lack access to essential vaccines, and outbreaks of preventable diseases—including measles and meningitis—are increasing, threatening to reverse decades of gains,” the Gates Foundation said.
It said Gavi’s co-financing model emphasises country ownership and long-term sustainability, noting that as partner countries’ economies grow, they contribute more to their vaccine programmes and eventually transition to self-financing.
“Since 2000, 19 countries have successfully graduated from Gavi support,” it added.
Nigeria in focus
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation has been a major beneficiary of GAVI’s vaccine support.
In 2024 alone, Nigeria received thousands of doses of Mpox, malaria, cholera, and meningitis (MenFive) vaccines from GAVI.
READ ALSO: Hope for Nigerians as potential Lassa fever vaccine passes major hurdle
More recently, the Nigerian government secured a $191 million health systems strengthening grant from GAVI, aimed at improving immunisation delivery over the next four years.
Described as one of the largest ever health systems grant by Gavi, the funding is expected to help reach at least 1.8 million zero-dose children and increase immunisation coverage to 84 per cent by 2028.
In addition, Gavi is investing nearly $100 million in a nationwide measles and rubella vaccination campaign targeting over 100 million children.
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