Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization

The GAVI Alliance (GAVI) (formerly The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) is an alliance between different stakeholders, in both the private and public sectors, committed to the mission of saving children's lives and protecting people's health through the worldwide expansion of mass vaccination programs.

The alliance

 * Governments and vaccine industry of industrialized countries
 * Governments and vaccine industry of developing countries
 * World Health Organization, WHO
 * United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF
 * The World Bank Group
 * Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
 * Research institutes
 * Non-governmental organizations
 * Foundations
 * Technical health institutes

Launched in 2000 at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the GAVI Alliance includes among its partners developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialized and developing countries, research and technical agencies, NGOs, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is estimated that more than 2.3 million early deaths will have been prevented as a result of support by GAVI up to the end of 2006.

GAVI's efforts are critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goal on child health, which calls for reducing childhood mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Of the more than 10 million children who die before reaching their fifth birthday every year, 2.5 million die from diseases that could be prevented with currently available or new vaccines.

The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) was created in 2006 to raise capital for GAVI by frontloading government donations through the sale of bonds on the open market. The first offering, in November 2006, raised $1 billion.

For more information, see www.gavialliance.org.