COVID-19 funding
Australia's total COVID-19 funding commitmentsOverview
Australia has committed to support global vaccination, with a primary focus on the Indo-Pacific region, through four channels:
- a commitment to share 60 million vaccine doses with the Pacific and Southeast Asia by the end of 2022
- AU$523.2 million in bilateral support through the three-year Vaccine Access and Health Security Initiative (VAHSI), with $200 million earmarked for the Pacific and $300 million earmarked for Southeast Asia (with support for Myanmar under review)
- AU$100 million to improve vaccine access in Southeast Asia through the QUAD Vaccine Partnership
- globally, to date Australia has committed to provide AU$215 million and 10 million vaccine doses through the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC)
The four channels are not completely independent. 40 out of the 60 million vaccine donations are expected to be provided from Australia’s own supply, while the remaining 20 million are planned to be procured and funded through the AU$523.2 million bilateral support and AU$100 QUAD Vaccine Partnership.
Multilateral contributions – ACT Accelerator and COVAX
In April 2020, the WHO launched its Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator which brings together various global health organisations to accelerate the development, production and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines. As part of this initiative, the WHO has also developed the ACT-Accelerator Commitment Tracker to report on funding commitments made by countries and organisations against ACT-Accelerator Pillar budgets through nine leading global health organisations (CEPI, Gavi, Therapeutics Accelerator, Unitaid, FIND, Global Fund, WHO, UNICEF, GFF).
This cooperation is organised around four pillars: diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines and health system strengthening. The vaccines pillar is delivered through COVAX, which is a global vaccine sharing initiative co-led by the WHO, Gavi, and CEPI. The Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) is a part of the initiative that supports access to vaccines for 92 eligible low- and middle-income countries.
As of 29 Oct 2021, the ACT-Accelerator had received total financial commitments of US$17.8 billion towards the 2020-21 budget, with a funding gap of US$15.4 billion. In the budget year from Oct 2021 to Sep 2022, ACT-Accelerator sought to raise grant funding of US$16.85 billion, with US$5.98 billion for vaccines (COVAX),US$4.73 billion for diagnostics, US$3.65 billion for health systems, and US$2.48 billion for therapeutics, but only US$6.1 billion has been raised. Now ACT-A has entered a transition period starting from Oct 2022 to March 2023, aiming to fill up a funding gap of US$386 million.
Altogether, Australia has committed US$216 million to ACT-Accelerator, about 1% of a total of US$21.9 billion from government donors. Australia’s ranking in total funding among government donors is currently 15th out of 60. US$200 million of Australia’s total funding commitments is provided to COVAX, which is ACT-Accelerator’s vaccines pillar. The breakdown of Australia’s funding commitments can be found in the charts to the right.
In addition to funding, Australia has pledged to offer at least 10 million vaccine doses to the COVAX AMC. This donation has not been reflected in either the ACT-Accelerator tracker or UNICEF’s COVID-19 Vaccine Market Dashboard. As explained in this blog, Australia has made its vaccine contributions mainly through bilateral and regional efforts.
Bilateral and regional contributions
Australia’s regional and bilateral contributions include bilateral donations of vaccine doses, AU$523.5 VAHSI “end-to-end” support, and AU$100 million QUAD Vaccine Partnership commitments.
According to the Australian Government’s Vaccine Access for the Indo-Pacific reporting, as at 6 December 2022 Australia shared a total of 52.1 million vaccine doses in the Indo-Pacific region, meeting 87 percent of its goal of sharing 60 million doses by the end of 2022. About 23.57 million doses were supplied by Australia directly while the rest 28.56 million doses were procured from UNICEF. Vaccines delivered through the QUAD Vaccine Partnership by Australia and other partners can be found in this Dashboard.
Among the recipients of those 52.1 million donated vaccines, Vietnam is the biggest recipient with 26.5 million doses, followed by Indonesia, the Philippines, and Cambodia. Overall, Southeast Asian countries have received a total of 47.9 million doses, while Pacific countries and Timor-Leste share the rest (4.2 million).
UNICEF’s COVID-19 Vaccine Market Dashboard tracks globally reported vaccine donations and deliveries. According to its reporting, Australia ranks 8th in vaccine donations and 9th in vaccine deliveries among government donors.
To learn more about Australia’s COVID funding and vaccine contributions, check WHO's ACT-Accelerator Commitment Tracker, the Economist’s COVID-19 Health Funding Tracker, UNICEF’s COVID-19 Vaccine Market Dashboard, Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security’s Vaccine Access for the Indo-Pacific, QUAD country COVID-19 response in Indo-Pacific region, and Think Global Health.
To find more details on Australia's commitments to specific international organisations and funds, go to our Commitments page and check these blogs (here and here).
Summary
- Australia has been a generous contributor to the global vaccine equity.
- Australia has committed US$220 million to ACT-Accelerator, ranked at 15th out of 60 government donors.
- Australia has shared a total of 52.1 million vaccine doses in the Indo-Pacific region, with Vietnam being the biggest recipient.
- Australia is the 8th biggest government donor in vaccine donations.