Action Plan on COVID-19 – G7 Foreign Ministers, May 2022

We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union, have endorsed the following Action Plan:

Much has already been achieved by our efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, with global vaccine supply now rapidly accelerating. However, there remain significant gaps in the global response to the current health crisis. Challenges remain to address equity in this COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemic preparedness. As G7, we have a particular responsibility to work with implementing countries and economies to help address these gaps. Given the wide ranging impacts of the pandemic, Foreign Ministers have a crucial role to play in ensuring that comprehensive, cross-cutting and swift action is taken.

Our contribution as Foreign Ministers to the overall G7 engagement in Global Health in 2022 will focus on jointly addressing gaps in the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign, including in critical ‘last mile’ contexts and with a focus on vulnerable groups, expanding emphasis and support for frontline health workers and necessary equipment. In line with other G7 initiatives, we will work with countries and the international community to begin planning for the ongoing COVID-19 response for 2023 and beyond to help build political commitment for preparedness for the future.

This effort aligns to the WHO Global Vaccination Strategy and the commitment taken by G20 at the Leaders’ Summit in Rome in October 2021. To this end we commit to:

VACCINES

• Continue to accelerate our efforts to ensure equitable and rapid global distribution of safe, effective, quality-assured and affordable vaccines as well as access to complementary diagnostics, therapeutics, and other essential health products in line with country needs by:
  • Contributing to finance and support, by all means, the efforts of ACT-A and its COVAX platform, particularly in low- and middle income countries. The G7 have already provided and pledged 18.33 billion USD for ACT-A, of which 12.36 billion USD fall to the COVAX vaccine pillar including GAVI, CEPI, WHO and UNICEF.
  • Where needed and available, sharing additional doses of safe and effective vaccines, with no political strings attached, and using responsible practices in vaccine donations. The G7 have already donated 1.18 billion doses and stand ready to share additional doses, based on the needs and capacities of countries and the necessity to have a global optimal allocation of vaccines (procured by COVAX directly or through donations).
• Closely coordinating with manufacturers, COVAX, regional organizations and recipient countries and economies at all levels to support effective donor coordination efforts, and to optimize production rhythm and further improve the sharing process, better align delivery timelines with country needs and capacities and address issues such as shelf life and to increase transparency and visibility and phasing of planned deliveries.

VACCINATIONS

• Working with governments, the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership and other relevant stakeholders to support 115 countries in need, particularly LICs, with 3.95 billion USD to address logistical, planning as well as human resources challenges on the “last mile” to ensure that vaccines become actual vaccinations, including by:
  • Supporting countries with syringes and other ancillary equipment;
  • Providing evidence-based training on the safety and efficacy of vaccines; and build capacity for front line health and care workers, expanding the frontline healthcare workforce;
  • Building trust in public institutions and combatting mis- and disinformation on the ground through engaging with communities and tailored information campaigns, based on scientific and factual evidence;
  • Improving logistics through public-private partnerships (cold chains);
  • Improving coordination of concrete measures on the ground among donors and implementing agencies in order to avoid duplication and create synergies between different activities, guided by the WHO and other relevant multilateral actors involved, as appropriate;
  • Integrating measures within strengthened health systems to ensure COVID-19 vaccine delivery does not weaken other critical health measures, but rather reinforces national immunization systems;
  • Supporting national and sub-national campaigns towards the 70% target, prioritizing coverage among health and frontline workers, the elderly, and the immunocompromised.
• Leaving no one behind in our global vaccination campaign by putting a special focus on historically marginalized and vulnerable groups, especially refugees, rural communities, and women and girls, particularly those living in crisis or in humanitarian contexts, and calling for the full operationalization of the COVAX Humanitarian Buffer, a valuable measure of last resort to reach the most vulnerable communities and humanitarian settings.
• Protecting front line health care workers and sustainably strengthening national health systems, e.g. by supporting detection and surveillance capacities at all levels.

VACCINE PRODUCTION

• Increasing sustainable local and regional production capacities in developing countries, through partnerships for voluntary technology transfers on mutually agreed terms and other relevant forms of support with an emphasis on supporting sustainable long-term capacity building for safe, effective and quality-assured COVID-19 vaccines, as well as wider vaccine and essential medical needs such as anti-virals, allowing us to be flexible to respond to this and future pandemics.
• We therefore commit to supporting a diversified global vaccine production by supporting capacities in low and middle income countries through sharing knowledge, expertise and financing.

We will closely coordinate with other like-minded partners, international and UN organizations as well as multilateral and regional initiatives to pool our efforts. G7 Foreign Ministers recognize the criticality of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in parallel building global health security capacity and architecture for the future.