Brown launches vaccine finance facility
Chancellor Gordon Brown today unveiled his plans to raise money for vaccines in the poorest parts of the world.
The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFm) aims to raise at least $4 billion (£2.25 billion) over the next ten years and save some ten million lives.
It operates by borrowing money against aid budgets from donor countries to fund immunisation projects in some 72 countries, and will enable funds to be raised more quickly than those countries’ budgets would allow.
“Today, by matching the capacity of medical advance with the power of long-term finance, we are launching an initiative capable of saving ten million lives – sparing millions of families across the world from the avoidable pain of a son or a daughter needlessly dying,” Mr Brown said.
The scheme received a boost this summer when Eurostat, the EU’s statistical body, declared that pledges of aid would not count in the borrowing figures of donor countries. This meant many European countries reluctant to take on more borrowing could participate.
Donors will have 20 years to repay the money pledged to the scheme, whose long-term goal is to eradicate diseases such as polio, hepatitis B, measles and tetanus and other diseases.
Flanked by representatives from France, Italy, Spain and Sweden, Mr Brown launched the initiative in London before travelling north to Manchester for a meeting of EU finance ministers and central bankers.
Mr Brown claims nearly 30 million children go without immunisation every year. Between now and 2015, he envisages some five million lives will be saved as a consequence of IFFIm, with five million more saved in the decade after.
Britain will provide a third of the necessary funding – $130 million a year – while France has pledged a quarter ($100 million a year). Italy has pledged ten per cent ($30 million a year), Spain three per cent ($12 million a year) and Sweden had made a total pledge of $27 million.
The Gates Foundation, set up by Microsoft found Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, is contributing $750 million over ten years, and the money will be distributed through the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi).
Mr Gates described the IFFIm as a “bold and innovative approach to financing critical global health programmes”, saying it was unacceptable that millions of children go without immunisations taken for granted in rich countries.
Graca Machel, chairwoman of the Vaccine Fund board, added: “GAVI and the Vaccine Fund have shown that immunisation saves children’s lives.
“IFFIm will provide long term predictable funding that is urgently needed to save the lives of millions more. This turns promises into action.”
The immunisation project will be regarded as a pilot for a much wider International Finance Facility that would raise money for development through a similar mechanism.
