Save the Children and GlaxoSmithKline, GSK, have joined forces to launch a new $1 million initiative aimed at accelerating childhood vaccination rates in Nigeria and Ethiopia.
The programme, called the Save the Children and GSK Immunization Accelerator, targets innovative solutions to overcome longstanding barriers preventing children from receiving vital vaccinations.
The Accelerator is open to a wide range of organizations, including community groups, NGOs, research teams, social enterprises, and tech companies. Promising applicants will receive financial and technical support to pilot their solutions and scale up their impact.
It comes as a critical response to the high number of unvaccinated children in Africa. With 8.7 million children having never received a routine vaccination, the continent faces a significant public health challenge.
Nigeria and Ethiopia are at the center of the crisis, with a third of the total number of unvaccinated (zero dose) children residing in the two countries.
According to UNICEF, half of the top 20 countries in the world with the largest number of zero-dose children are in Africa. Nigeria and Ethiopia account for more than 2.2 million and 1.1 million of these children respectively with two in five zero-dose children in Africa living in one of the two countries.
Building on their existing decade-long partnership, Save the Children and GSK aim to address the various factors hindering vaccine access and utilization. The Accelerator will support innovations tackling issues on both the supply and demand sides, such as community engagement, vaccine logistics, and data management for improved vaccination coverage tracking.
Grants of up to $100,000 per project will be available, along with comprehensive support services tailored to the specific needs of each organization, including technical guidance, legal advice, and branding assistance.
The collaboration represents a significant step forward in tackling childhood vaccine hesitancy and ensuring all children in Nigeria and Ethiopia have access to life-saving immunizations.
The Country Director of Save the Children International Nigeria, Duncan Harvey, said, "Save the Children has been deeply committed to implementing immunization-related projects and interventions across Nigeria in response to the high rate of zero-dose and unimmunized children in the country.
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"The Save the Children and GSK Immunisation Accelerator was born out of an understanding of the urgent necessity for locally led innovation to achieve our shared vision of a world where no child suffers from a vaccine-preventable disease.
"This collaboration opens new opportunities and efforts in tackling the barriers and defiance to immunization, especially in our communities. As locally led innovators, the uniqueness and relatability of the innovations will address widely the issues of zero-dose immunized children and provide more sustainable solutions that translate to a higher number of children being immunized."
The Chief Global Health Officer, GSK, Dr Thomas Breuer, said: "We're excited to see applications open for the Immunisation Accelerator. Our partnership with Save the Children is guided by local communities, experts and stakeholders, so seeking out the local knowledge and capabilities in Ethiopia and Nigeria is fundamental in finding unique innovations that could help address the critical need for improvements to vaccination rates amongst children.
"We eagerly anticipate the fresh ideas that the Accelerator will bring, and we're ready at GSK to support these innovations come to fruition, to help change the trajectory for children in Nigeria, Ethiopia and beyond."
To be considered eligible, projects must be at the testing stage of the innovation cycle and show evidence of how they could address a priority immunisation barrier. Each will be reviewed against a robust selection criteria and consistently evaluated. Applications are open on their website until 24th May 2024, followed by a second call out in 2025.
