President Biden convened a virtual Global COVID-19 Summit focused on ending the pandemic and building better health security to prevent and prepare for future biological threats.
The President called on the world to collectively end the COVID-19 pandemic as soon as possible, with every country, partner, and organization doing its part, aligning around shared goals and targets, and holding each other to account. At the same time, all countries need the capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to biological threats, including future pandemics. The Summit introduced ambitious targets in three critical areas for ending this pandemic and preventing and preparing for the next: Vaccinate the World; Save Lives Now; and Build Back Better.
President Biden hosted the virtual Global COVID Summit: Ending the Pandemic and Building Back Better, which included participation by representatives from more than 100 governments and other partners and more than 100 leaders from international organizations, the private sector, the philanthropic sector, civil society, academia, and other stakeholders. These are listed below.
The COVID-19 pandemic has already claimed over 4.5 million lives and continues to ravage communities and economies around the world. President Biden called on Summit participants to not only do more, but to do enough to end the pandemic and build back better.
President Biden was also joined at the Summit by Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power, Department of Health and Human Services Director of the Office of Global Affairs Loyce Pace, and State Department Coordinator for the Global COVID-19 Response and Health Security Gayle Smith. The full list of participants is available below.
Throughout the Summit, leaders of countries and organizations underscored the importance of coalescing around shared targets to align commitments with outcomes, as all parties worked together to: Vaccinate the World, Save Lives Now, and Build Back Better Global Health Security over the months ahead. Reaching these targets will require leadership, ambition, boldness, collaboration, transparency, and new commitments.
In advance of and during the Summit, many countries and stakeholders announced their intention to donate vaccines and financial support to critical vaccine readiness activities to ensure shots get into arms around the world. Leaders broadly aligned around the World Health Organization (WHO) target of vaccinating at least 70 percent of the global population in every country by UNGA 2022 and expressed shared urgency to do more, to act now, to enhance accountability, and to monitor progress. To advance this effort, President Biden called for another Heads of State-level Summit in the first quarter of 2022, and Secretary Blinken committed to convene Foreign Ministers in 2021. Countries made new commitments to share doses and/or double or triple previous pledges for vaccines, delivery, oxygen and testing support, and health security.
Participants from around the world and across sectors, listed below, brought commitments to the Summit – further details will be available over the coming days. While the event was not a pledging conference, participants’ combined commitments exceeded 850 million additional COVID-19 vaccine doses and major new commitments for vaccine readiness, oxygen, testing, health systems, and health security financing.
Source: The White House
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