On Sept. 30, 2020, the United Nations (UN) and its partners announced that nearly $1 billion in financing was committed to the Access to COVID-19 Tools- (ACT) Accelerator initiative launched by the World Health Organization alongside international partners. – the world’s most comprehensive multilateral end-to-end solution to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.

The ACT-Accelerator, which was co-launched by the World Health Organization, European Commission, France and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation just five months ago, needs an additional US$35 billion to realize its goals of producing 2 billion vaccine doses, 245 million treatments and 500 million tests. The new commitments to the initiative are welcome and will be leveraged to catalyze further funding to continue the ACT-Accelerator’s groundbreaking work. 

Most urgently, the ACT-Accelerator requires US$15 billion to support immediate capacity-building—for research and development, manufacturing, procurement and delivery systems—by the end of the year. The ACT-Accelerator, which was launched just five months ago, is an unprecedented global collaboration of the world’s top international health organizations working together to accelerate the development, production, and equitable delivery of COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. 

The United Kingdom recently committed up to £571m (approximately US$ 732m) for COVAX. This includes up to £500m for the Gavi Advanced Market Commitment for COVID-19 (COVAX AMC) vaccines—a financing instrument that incentivises vaccine manufacturers to produce sufficient COVID-19 vaccines to ensure access for developing countries.

Germany, Canada and Sweden have also made new commitments to the COVAX AMC of Euro 100 million, CAD$ 220 million and US$ 10 million respectively. These are eligible for matching with today’s UK matching commitment.