Remarks by Mr. Zoellick at the launch of the Advance Market Commitment for Vaccines

As Prepared For Delivery

Remarks by Mr. Zoellick at the launch of the Advance Market Commitment for Vaccines

Lecce, Italy

June 12, 2009

I am delighted to be here for the launch of this important and innovative pilot. 

Four years ago, the World Bank Group convened a meeting with G-7 representatives and the CEOs of the world’s major vaccine manufacturers from both developed and developing countries.  Out of that meeting came a request from the G-7 Finance Ministers to Minister Tremonti to lead the work developing this pilot Advance Market Commitment for vaccines needed in the poorest countries.

So I’m pleased Minister Tremonti could bring us all together today under Italy’s continuing leadership.

We faced novel and challenging issues.  But we had a wonderful group of partners: GAVI, UNICEF and the six AMC donors, the Center for Global Development, the WHO, more than a dozen vaccine manufacturers, and  health and vaccine experts from public-private partnerships, academia, think tanks, developing country health ministries, and the private sector.

The AMC is a complex pilot that tackles a challenging problem: trying to accelerate the introduction, and sustainable supply, of a critically important vaccine into the countries that need it the most. 

The pilot AMC targets pneumococcal diseases, which kill as many children as are killed by malaria, and more children than HIV/AIDS and TB combined. By helping to bring this vaccine to those in need, we hope to be able to save 7.7 million lives by 2030. 

The AMC structure is practical, catalyzing public sector support to create market incentives for the pharmaceutical industry to develop research and products for those who otherwise would not receive commercial attention from business.

AMC is also predicated on concrete results: AMC will only sell vaccines that will be most effective in the poorest countries.

And the progress is owned by the developing countries that the AMC is to serve, driven by their demand.

The AMC pilot is unprecedented, and the World Bank Group’s role in it is unprecedented as well.  We are supporting the AMC’s platform through the World Bank’s own balance sheet, effectively insuring the full value of the $1.5 billion from donors that provides the AMC incentive to vaccine manufacturers. 

Very importantly: this innovative financing is additional to existing commitments, so that the AMC’s support will not be at the expense of other development priorities, such as International Development Association, our core funding for the 78 poorest  countries in this crisis. 

Working together, with innovation and ingenuity, we can save children’s lives and prevent needless suffering in the poorest countries. 

The AMC helps us to “modernize multilateralism,” connecting governments, private businesses, foundations, NGOs, and other contributors through an effective network that is catalyzed and supported by public international institutions such as the World Bank Group, UNICEF, and the WHO.

We can tap the creative research and productive efficiency of private business.  We can keep costs low.  We can connect markets to the basic needs of the poor.

Looking ahead, we hope this pilot will provide a path for other pioneers to use market incentives to develop vaccines, drugs, and other products that are critically needed in developing countries.

Thank you.

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