Outgoing UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock on Monday slammed the G7 for failing to come up with a plan to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, describing the G7 pledge to provide 1 billion doses over the next year as a “small step.”
“These sporadic, small-scale, charitable handouts from rich countries to poor countries is not a serious plan and it will not bring the pandemic to an end,” said Lowcock, who steps down on Friday. “The G7, essentially, completely failed to show the necessary urgency.”
The leaders of the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada met in Cornwall, England, over the weekend and also agreed to work with the private sector, the G20 and other countries to increase the vaccine contribution over months to come.
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“They took a small step — at that very, very nice resort in Cornwall — but they shouldn’t kid themselves that it’s more than a small step, and they still have a lot to do,” Lowcock said.
“What the world needed from the G7 was a plan to vaccinate the world. And what we got was a plan to vaccinate about 10 percent of the population of low and middle income countries, maybe by a year from now or the second half of next year,” he said.
In May, the IMF introduced a US$50 billion proposal to end the COVID-19 pandemic by vaccinating at least 40 percent of the population in all countries by the end of this year and at least 60 percent by the first half of next year.
“That is the deal of the century,” Lowcock said, adding that the G7 could also have done a lot more to provide vital supplies — such as oxygen ventilators, testing kits and protective equipment — to countries who are going to have to wait longer for vaccines.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday urged world leaders to act with more urgency, saying that if developing countries were not vaccinated quickly, the virus would continue to mutate and could become immune to inoculation.
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