The GAVI Alliance is a partnership, involving elements of both the public and the private sectors. Its focus is to:

"improve child health in the poorest countries by extending the reach and quality of immunisation coverage within strengthened health services."

The partnership brings together a wide range of actors, including

• UN agencies and institutions (UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank)
• Civil society organisations (International Pediatric Association)
• Public health institutes (The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)
• Donor and implementing country governments
• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & other private philanthropists
• Vaccine industry representatives
• The financial community and others

The intention of the alliance is to enable countries to develop sustainable programmes and progress towards integrating them into national health service budgets. GAVI aims to do this by improving access to sustainable immunisation services, expanding the use of all cost-effective vaccines, accelerating the introduction of new vaccines, speeding up efforts to create new vaccines and making immunisation a central part of assessing international development efforts.

Between 2000 and 2006, the GAVI Alliance spent US$2.2 billion supporting five-year immunisation programmes in 75 of the world’s poorest countries. From 2007, the alliance is trying new funding models which are helping the transition to multi-year commitments from donor countries, and help to aid long term sustainability of their operations. More here.

Since 2000, the GAVI website reportst that their immunisation programmes have 

"saved an estimated 2.3 million lives in developing countries, making a significant contribution to preventing and containing infectious diseases and building healthy, self-sustaining societies."

A little girl receiving her vaccine in Mali

More information from the GAVI Alliance on their website and on this factsheet

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