GAVI Matching Fund public-private partnership working to raise money

In this AlertNet commentary, GAVI Alliance CEO Seth Berkley discusses how "public-private partnership is part of the GAVI Alliance's formula for success that has helped countries to immunize 325 million children in our first 10 years, saving more than 5.5 million lives." Writing last week from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Berkley says, "In fact, public-private partnerships are part of what brings me to Davos this week."

He describes "a ground-breaking initiative called the GAVI Matching Fund," under which the "British government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation each has agreed to match corporate contributions to the GAVI Alliance," with the goal of "rais[ing] an additional $260 million for immunization by the end of 2015." Berkley concludes, "The GAVI Matching Fund is only a few months old but it already has raised tens of millions of dollars for children's immunization. That is the kind of public-private partnership that works and represents a rare chance to be part of something that will change the lives of millions of people for the better" (1/27).