The topic of this month’s call was the work of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and why the UK must honour its pledges to global health funds despite the cuts to the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget. We were delighted to welcome Dr. Chizoba Wonodi as guest speaker to the call and hear about the work of Gavi and the impact it makes. Dr. Wonodi is a public health physician and the former vice chair of the Gavi CSO Platform Steering Committee, a body that coordinates Civil Societies active in immunization. She serves as the Nigeria Country Director at the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) and is founder of the Women Advocates for Vaccine Access (WAVA).
Dr. Wonodi told us about some of the work Gavi does to support the rollout of routine immunisations in low- and middle- income countries, and the way that Gavi works with civil society organisations. She described some of the disruptions to vaccination programmes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and mentioned the work Gavi is doing with COVAX, increasing access to COVID-19 vaccinations. Dr. Wonodi ended the call by thanking advocates for all their work supporting Gavi.
As Aaron Oxley, Executive Director of RESULTS UK, explained at the start of the call, the recent motion passed in the House of Commons is bad news for the commitment of spending 0.7% national income on ODA. But even within a reduced budget, pledges such as that made to Gavi in 2020 must be honoured. Find out more in this month’s campaign “Keeping our promises on global health” and take action!
Also on the call, Aaron shared the mixed news to come out of the Global Education Summit and recent updates on COVID-19 dose-sharing – two issues we have campaigned on this year. We also had a roundup of activities from across the Grassroots Network, including some speaker announcements for this year’s RESULTS National Conference.
If you missed the call, check out the recording below.
Links shared in the Zoom chat:
RESULTS’ statment on the outcome of the vote on ODA
Article on COVID-19 vaccine sharing
RESULTS UK’ statement on the outcome of the Global Education Summit
Reflections on the 0.7% campaign blog
Cheshire group’s response to their MP on aid
National Conference website (11-12 September)