This weekend, the Group of Twenty (G20) concluded the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rome, Italy. The G20 Rome Summit 2021 focused on global health, climate change and sustainable development.
Below are key highlights of Canada’s commitments at the G20 Leaders’ Summit that relate to the advancement of women, children and adolescents’ health.
Canada will keep working to ensure access to vaccines through investments in the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) Facility and through the donation of surplus vaccine doses. Canada will donate the equivalent of at least 200 million doses to the COVAX Facility by the end of 2022. This includes an immediate commitment to contribute up to 10 million Moderna vaccine doses.
With a current contribution of over $1.3 billion through the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, Canada has made investments to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics are available around the world. This includes the commitment of previously unallocated ACT-A funding of $70 million for vaccine distribution and delivery and COVID-19 diagnostics through existing ACT-A partners. Prime Minister Trudeau also confirmed Canada’s support for a G20 commitment on pandemic preparedness, including the establishment of a G20 Joint Finance-Health Task Force.
Prime Minister Trudeau announced an investment of up to $15 million, to COVAX Manufacturing Task Force partners, in support of the establishment of the South Africa Technology Transfer Hub. This will help build capacity to enable development and production of mRNA vaccines and technologies in the region.
Canada will channel $3.7 billion, or 20 percent of its newly allocated International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), to support low-income and other vulnerable countries. As part of this, Prime Minister Trudeau announced that approximately $982 million would be distributed to the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT).
Canada’s contribution to the PRGT includes a grant of SDR 61 million, the equivalent of about $107 million, as well as a new loan commitment of SDR 500 million, the equivalent of about $875 million.
Stay tuned to @CanWaCH on Twitter for more updates related to the advancement of women, children and adolescents’ health from COP26, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, this week!
Share the bounty, boost the global economy: Why Canada should channel its SDRs to developing countries by Results Canada
G20 Summit in Rome Recap: Here’s What You Need to Know by Global Citizen
