GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child engages passionate individuals, visionary philanthropists, foundations and corporations to support the GAVI Alliance's mission to ensure that every child everywhere has equal access to life-saving vaccines. 

2.5 million children die each year because they lack access to vaccines.  This is a tragedy that we can prevent.

With Nelson Mandela, the GAVI Alliance's founding chairman, we believe that access to life-saving vaccines should not be an accident of birth. 

Funds raised by GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child help the GAVI Alliance purchase new and underused vaccines and strengthen the capacity of health systems to deliver vaccines in the 72 poorest countries in the world.

The GAVI Alliance, a global partnership that includes WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank and funded by donor countries and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has achieved remarkable success in creating and implementing new methods of development assistance for health. 

World Health Organization projections show that GAVI Alliance support prevented more than 3.4 million future deaths by the end of 2008; protected a cumulative 50.9 million children with basic vaccines against DTP3 (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis); and protected a cumulative 213 million children with new and underused vaccines.

Visionary philanthropy has been integral to GAVI’s existence and continued success. The initial investment of US$750 million over five years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was catalytic to its creation and a subsequent contribution of US$750 million over 10 years is enabling GAVI to continue to be an innovator on a global scale, take risks, create new financing programmes, and frontload monies to accelerate results.

In 2007 the Alliance launched the Immunize Every Child Campaign to attract funding from a critical mass of entrepreneurial private donors while building a vocal and visible donor community.

GAVI is targeting those who recognise the power of a public-private partnership and want to develop it to help the world's poorest children.

Visible recognition

Visionary individuals from public and private life who set an example by making or securing significant financial commitments to support the immunisation cause are acknowledged in the Campaign’s honorary group, the “Every Child Council.” Honorary founding members include:

§  Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan
§  Her Royal Highness La Infanta Cristina of Spain
§  Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Founding members are:

§  John Corzine, Governor of the State of New Jersey
§  Mel Karmazin, CEO of SIRIUS Satellite Radio
§  George W. Wellde, Jr, Vice-Chairman of Securities Division (Retired) Goldman Sachs & Co.

La Caixa Foundation

La Caixa bank’s private foundation (the largest corporate foundation in Spain, second largest in Europe, and fifth worldwide) is creating a philanthropic agenda based on the GAVI mission.

La Caixa Foundation is working with GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child to reach the bank’s thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of depositors to amass additional funds for immunization.  This unique and noteworthy corporate social responsibility initiative includes an annual grant from the La Caixa Foundation, engagement of La Caixa's 26,000 employees, 400,000 depositors and 11 million account holders. 

This support from the Spanish private sector builds upon GAVI’s existing engagement with the Government of Spain which is a donor to IFFIm, having committed €189.50 million over 20 years, and actively involved in the GAVI Alliance Board as alternate member, and is represented on the  Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Advisory Group (METAG).

GAVI Alliance Immunize Every Child is also reaching out to the broader community of individuals who want to make a difference.  GiveVaccines is an internet site where people play a vocabulary game and where each correct answer funds 0.01 ml of vaccine for the GAVI Alliance. 

Immunize Every Child is also one of the founding members of World Pneumonia Day to be held on November 2nd 2009.  This will provide individuals a way to engage in the fight against pneumonia as the number one killer of children.  2 million children under the age of 5 die every year from pneumonia and that number could be dramatically reduced with the widescale introduction of the pneumococcal conjugate and Hib vaccines. 

Raising awareness about the potential of these vaccines to reduce pneumonia deaths as well as the potential of the new rotavirus vaccine to prevent diarrheal deaths (the second biggest killer of children) are strategic priorities for the GAVI Immunize Every Child campaign.