Gavi delays $9B replenishment event amid tough fundraising environment

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance has pushed back its high-level replenishment summit by three months. It’s now hosting the event on June 25, where it’s asking donors — including governments, private organizations, and individuals — for at least $9 billion to fund its work from 2026 through 2030. The event, which was previously scheduled for March 19 and 20, will be hosted in Brussels, coinciding with the European Council Meeting. When the public-private partnership initially launched its replenishment ask last June — it was already facing a precarious funding environment, with global health funding remaining mostly flat for more than a decade, and multiple funds and organizations simultaneously vying for donors to give — including the World Health Organization, the International Development Association, and the Pandemic Fund. And this rough fundraising environment became exponentially worse as the Trump administration rapidly dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, canceling 5,200 of its global contracts, and culling its workforce. This has left gaping funding holes for global health programs that implementers hope other donors will help fill. The United States already made its commitment to Gavi’s replenishment under former President Joe Biden’s administration last June, pledging at least $1.58 billion. Gavi received some $300 million from the U.S. government last December but there’s some uncertainty about future U.S. payments to the partnership. Gavi would expect to receive more funding from the U.S. in the third quarter of this year, but the U.S. Congress hasn’t yet finalized the federal budget for 2025. This is where Gavi’s contribution will be determined. But there are signs that the U.S. government sees the importance of Gavi’s work. Amid widespread cancellation of U.S. government global health programs, U.S. support for Gavi’s core programming hasn’t been terminated. The foreign aid upheaval isn’t just in the U.S., the United Kingdom recently announced plans to slash aid spending — shifting billions of pounds from international development to support a larger military. The U.K., which is one of the biggest single donors to Gavi, hasn’t yet announced a commitment to Gavi’s replenishment. It’s given Gavi more than £2 billion over the last four years, but last month, The Guardian reported the U.K. is poised to make a “significant reduction” in funding it allocates to Gavi. The decision to push back the replenishment event “was taken collectively to ensure that this Summit is keenly focused on Gavi's core mission of protecting children and communities around the world and helping to protect our world from disease outbreaks,” the organization wrote in a release Friday. A spokesperson told Devex the organization has secured over $3 billion in early pledges and that it sees “strong alignment among our donors and stakeholders on the importance of Gavi’s mission.” This includes a donation from Indonesia, which pledged to Gavi for the first time, and on Friday, Canada pledged 675 million Canadian dollars. Gavi’s replenishment summit is co-hosted by the European Union and Gates Foundation. As Devex previously reported, it's unusual for a major replenishment to be co-hosted by a philanthropic organization. At its last replenishment summit in 2020, Gavi secured a record $8.8 billion in funding — exceeding the target of at least $7.4 billion. With this next $9 billion in requested funding for the coming five years, Gavi aims to vaccinate at least 500 million children from life-threatening, vaccine-preventable diseases. It also aims to make its largest investment in global health security through expanding global vaccine stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningococcal, and yellow fever vaccines — helping the world rapidly respond to emergencies. It will also ramp up the rollout of malaria vaccines and introduce a vaccine against dengue, among other efforts. Since its inception in 2000, the organization said it has protected more than 1.1 billion children against a range of diseases, averted nearly 19 million deaths, and helped halve childhood mortality in countries it supports. The organization argues its work not only saves lives but works to protect the world’s population against antimicrobial resistance — as vaccines prevent disease, which limits the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. During the Africa Health Agenda International Conference last week in Kigali, Dr. Githinji Gitahi, group chief executive officer of Amref Health Africa, stressed that with limited resources, the continent needs to focus on the basics around preventing disease — which includes investing in immunizations.