Thank you, Excellencies, and dear colleagues,
That wraps up a very productive session.
I express my heartfelt gratitude to the Heads of States and Governments, Member States, Principals of UN agencies, civil society, and goodwill ambassadors, for their participation and contributions – and for echoing our calls for comprehensive global vaccine equity.
Today’s discussions have greatly illustrated the outstanding gaps and the challenges before us. Yet they have also shed light on the many effective innovations and solutions we have at our disposal, to resolve and overcome them.
I applaud ongoing initiatives to implement some of those solutions, including the setting up of mRNA vaccine hubs in South Africa and Latin America, and the expansion of vaccine production facilities in six countries in Africa.
Now we must accelerate momentum, so that the cloud of this pandemic finally clears and gives way to a spring of recovery, everywhere and for everyone.
This is in our power. Enlisting the help of scientists and pharmaceutical companies we can share the knowledge needed to create more vaccines and boost production, while supporting research and development.
Through multilateral instruments, and the generosity of donor countries, we can sustain those efforts through predicable and adequate financing and logistics.
We can rollout the vaccine stocks sitting idly on shelves, and we can let lower and middle-income countries shape their own rollouts, in accordance with their national contexts.
We can listen to civil society as they demand accountability, and effective policies that address pandemic preparedness and local vaccination demand.
And as we reflect on all that we can do, let us mobilize for what we must do.
Let us draw upon our sense of obligation to one another, and the knowledge of our ability to make a difference, and take action to vaccinate the entire world, to finally end this pandemic, once and for all.
Thank you.
