World Bank Support for Country Access to COVID-19 Vaccines

As of May 13, 2021, the World Bank Board approved operations to support vaccine rollout in 22 countries amounting to $2.4 billion. See the latest project financing, project documents and procurement information in the list below. More information will be shared here as it becomes available. We expect to reach 50 countries amounting to $4 billion by mid-year.

Through this, the World Bank Group is working with partners on the largest vaccination effort in history to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 2, 2020, at the initial COVID-19 response phase, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a $6 billion Global COVID-19 Response Program (also called the COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Program, or SPRP).

The program has reached over 100 countries with emergency operations to prevent, detect, and respond to COVID-19 and strengthen systems for public health preparedness. The timing of potential vaccine development was not known when the SPRP was approved, but global vaccine development efforts progressed rapidly.

Recognizing the need for COVID-19 vaccines, on October 13, 2020, the World Bank Board approved additional financing of $12 billion to the SPRP for developing countries to finance the acquisition and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines (read the project paper).

This article has been posted by a News Hour Correspondent. For queries, please contact through [email protected]
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