Malaysia and 54 other countries have been urged to contribute their "fair share" towards a global fund for combatting the Covid-19 pandemic, as it attempts to plug a large funding gap.
Based on the size of its economy and how much it stands to gain from a faster resumption of global trade, the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (Act-A) calculated that Malaysia should contribute about US$90 million (RM377 million) as its fair share to the fund.
The money will go towards rolling out tests, vaccines, treatments, and protective equipment for healthcare workers in low- and middle-income countries.
Act-A would also support research for better treatments and vaccines, including initiating studies on vaccines that offer broader protection against Covid-19 variants than current generation vaccines.
"Supporting the rollout of tools to fight Covid-19 globally will help to curb virus transmission, break the cycle of variants, relieve overburdened health workers and systems, and save lives.
"With every month of delay, the global economy stands to lose almost four times the investment the Act-A needs," it said in a statement today.
It said there is a persistent disparity in access to the tools needed to fight the pandemic.
For example, of the 4.7 billion Covid-19 tests administered since the start of the pandemic, only about 22 million (0.4 percent) are performed in low-income countries.
Only 10 percent of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
"This massive inequity not only costs lives, it also hurts economies and risks the emergence of new, more dangerous variants that could rob current tools of their effectiveness and set even highly-vaccinated populations back many months," it said.
Funding gap
Act-A is a partnership comprising several international agencies and NGOs, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef), the World Bank, the Wellcome Trust, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
It budgeted US$23.4 billion for its operations from October 2021 to September 2022 and hoped US$16.8 billion would come from richer countries. The remaining US$6.5 billion is expected to be self-financed by middle-income countries.
However, only US$814 million in grants have been pledged so far, leaving a funding gap of US$16 billion that it now hopes to fill through the newly devised "fair share" financing framework. This is meant to offer guidelines on how much countries are expected to contribute.
This assumes that US$0.5 billion will be covered through private sector and philanthropic contributions.
According to Act-A, its facilitation council co-chairs - Norway and South Africa - have recently written various countries to encourage them to contribute to the fund.
The countries comprise all high-income countries, G20 upper-middle-income countries, and two middle-income countries that have contributed to Act-A.
Meanwhile, a table issued by Act-A shows that Malaysia's fair share for its earlier 2020/21 budget would have been US$150 million (RM628 million), but no contribution was made. However, this does not account for in-kind contributions such as vaccine donations.
The country from which the largest contribution is expected is the US. Its share of contributions for this funding round is calculated at US$5.96 billion, followed by China (US$2.14 billion) and Japan (US$1.46 billion).
It also shows that six countries have met or exceeded their fair share commitments for 2020/21, namely Canada, Germany, Kuwait, Norway, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden. - Mkini
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