Nairobi — Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, will increase its investment in fragile and humanitarian settings by 15 percent even as it operates under significant financial pressure.
The decision is part of a set of reforms approved ahead of the organisation's next strategic period, Gavi 6.0 (2026-2030).
According to Gavi, the new strategy will channel the bulk of its support to the 25 percent most vulnerable children worldwide, prioritising low-income countries and those with the highest under-five mortality rates.
Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn
The reforms were endorsed at the alliance's final board meeting before the rollout of the new strategic plan, which seeks to give countries greater control over their immunisation programmes.
Under Gavi 6.0, nearly 90 percent of vaccine procurement funds will be allocated directly to countries, allowing governments to determine how best to structure and scale their programmes.
Gavi said the shift from rolling applications to country vaccine budgets is intended to eliminate advantages for early applicants and give all countries a clearer five-year view of available resources, enabling better domestic planning.
The Board also provisionally approved the addition of nine-valent HPV vaccines to bolster global cervical cancer prevention. It further endorsed the inclusion of tuberculosis, mpox and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines as priority antigens under the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), supporting Africa's vaccine production ambitions.
"Through the Gavi Leap, we are putting in place an ambitious programme of reforms that will enable countries to have increased agency and ownership over the use of resources and decreased administrative burden," said Sania Nishtar, Gavi's CEO.
Gavi, founded in 2000, is a global public-private partnership that supports low- and middle-income countries to access life-saving vaccines and strengthen routine immunisation.
With an estimated $10 billion available for the 2026-2030 period, the Board adopted several measures to ensure financial sustainability while protecting country-level support. These include cutting $200 million from global stockpile funding, halving the $200 million contingency budget, and financing co-financing waivers for fragile states through a separate allocation.
