The Group of 20 nations has raised $1.4 billion for a global pandemic health fund to help avoid a repeat of the COVID-19 outbreak that killed over 6.6 million people and crippled the world economy.
The World Bank will manage the fund to help low— and middle-income countries prevent and address future pandemics, drawing commitments from more than 20 country donors, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. More pledges are expected.
"The amount that has so far been accumulated is just the starting figure,” said Sri Mulyani Indrawati, finance minister of Indonesia, the host nation and head of this year’s G20 summit. "The estimated need is up to $31 billion, but this will not be the one and only instrument related to health system preparedness.”
G20 nations began work setting up the fund last year under the presidency of Italy as countries struggled to find enough money to fight the pandemic, with a shortfall of up to $16 billion, according to the World Health Organization.
Three years after the onset of COVID-19, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is pushing for equal access to the global health infrastructure by making it a priority for G20 meetings this year. That includes getting countries to harmonize health protocols and distribute research and manufacturing capacity for medical products.
"This will provide a starting point for all of us to demonstrate to the world that G20 is able to produce concrete action that can have a global impact,” Indrawati said on Sunday during the fund’s launch in Bali.