U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting a global COVID-19 summit today — and kicking things off by announcing another U.S. donation of 500 million doses of Pfizer vaccine.
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The White House only formally confirmed last Friday that its global COVID-19 summit takes place today, and it has been an all-hands-on-deck effort to pull together this virtual gathering of representatives from more than 100 countries and more than 100 organizations.
The summit is broken up into four sessions, which will be chaired by President Biden, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Those headliners will be paired with four moderators: U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Rockefeller Foundation President Rajiv Shah, HHS Global Affairs Director Loyce Pace, and Coordinator for Global COVID Response and Health Security Gayle Smith.
A senior administration official told reporters Tuesday that, “the summit is meant to be a deliberate beginning to the end of the pandemic.”
The White House circulated a list of targets in advance — including getting every country to 70% vaccination — in hopes of establishing some common agreement about what it will take to end the pandemic by 2022 and to prepare for future pandemics. It is expected to last roughly four hours, with a combination of live speeches and prerecorded messages.
Biden will also seek to reconvene world leaders by the first quarter of next year.
A new World Bank report update warned yesterday that about 52 nations, many of them low-income countries, will struggle economically to respond to future pandemics or even to purchase COVID-19 vaccines. “Wealthier countries have to recognize their interests in this recovery and back it up with resources,” Christoph Kurowski, the report’s lead author, tells Devex.
Read: Report: Dozens of nations might struggle to fund health after COVID-19
+For more content on COVID-19, and vaccine rollout and equity, sign up for Devex CheckUp, the must-read weekly newsletter for exclusive global health news and insider insights.
Global goals
American biotech company Novavax expects to produce 2 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in 2022 and to file for emergency approval within the year. My colleague Jenny Lei Ravelo sat down with Novavax Executive Vice President John Trizzino to hear how the company thinks about equitable vaccine distribution.
“We’ve taken our responsibility seriously in making [COVID-19 vaccine] doses available across the globe. Now, it's up to a variety of policymakers to decide where and how those are prioritized,” he said.
Read: Novavax EVP — It’s up to policymakers to decide use of COVID-19 vaccine
Doubling down
Biden’s first UNGA speech since taking office featured a commitment to double U.S. climate finance to $11.4 billion per year by 2024 in an effort to help close the gap on the commitment by high-income countries to contribute $100 billion in climate finance per year.
Rachel Kyte, dean at the Fletcher School, tells me that big development institutions such as the World Bank have a critical role to play here too — particularly on climate adaptation.
“It's not just about the numerical target. It is about making sure that all education lending, all health lending, all agricultural lending has this new reality built in,” she said in a Devex @ UNGA76 session.
Read: At UN, Biden pledges pivot from fighting wars to climate change
Turning the page
Higher-income countries have fallen short of their $100 billion climate finance commitment — though how far short is subject to debate. That doesn’t mean they’re off the hook though, says U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa.
“At COP 26 we will also have to start a discussion on what will be the climate finance objective after 2025, because this [$]100 billion was the goal for 2020 to 2025. After 2025, we need to go up,” she said.
Read: UNFCCC chief: $100B climate finance target must ‘go up’
Coal it a day
Chinese President Xi Jinping stole the climate spotlight from his American counterpart by announcing that China will no longer finance overseas coal projects.
Climate advocates hailed the move as a potential game-changer and potential death knell for coal. They also noted that China's move is not enough: Private investors and financial institutions will also need to follow suit. China is the world's top greenhouse gas emitter and the largest public financier of overseas coal plans.
PEPFAR’s pick
“Pledges that are not delivered are not useful — certainly not for us.”
— Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, deputy director at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and PreventionThe African continent has so far received about 167.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, despite the headline-grabbing pledges from higher-income countries that have been slow to deliver, Jenny reports.
The Africa CDC has been a bright spot in the global COVID-19 response, but its current leader, Dr. John Nkengasong, is now returning to the U.S. as the Biden administration’s highly-anticipated nominee to lead PEPFAR, the New York Times reports.
Global health experts are torn between celebrating a highly-qualified nominee and mourning the loss of a difference-making leader at Africa CDC.
ICYMI: Devex sat down with Africa CDC Dr. John Nkengasong to examine the challenges that lie ahead for Africa's COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Nkengasong also weighed in on the role of local manufacturing and workforce development in building Africa's health systems’ resilience.
In other news
The Taliban has picked Suhail Shaheen as its U.N. ambassador to replace the ousted government’s envoy to the global body. [BBC]
The United States may have violated international laws in the expulsion of Haitian asylum-seekers and migrants at the border in Texas, according to U.N. refugee chief Filippo Grandi. [Reuters]
Uzbekistan has secured $275 million in loans from the Islamic Development Bank and the OPEC Fund for International Development for its rural development project. [Xinhua]
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About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.
