How Do You Change the World? Spain's Commitment to Global Health

The value-added contributions that Spain can make to global health impact initiatives and their goal of achieving equity have the power to change the world.

[This text has been written by Virginia Rodríguez, Advocacy Project Manager at ISGlobal, and Marta Sevillano, trainee student of the Master's Degree in International Relations and African Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.]

Nearly 25 years ago, the first institutions were created to focus global efforts in achieving two of the Millennium Development Goals related to health: reducing child mortality by immunising children under five; and making progress against the AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria pandemics. These institutions were the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, established in 2000 and 2002 respectively. Since their inception, GAVI programmes have immunised 1 billion children worldwide, averting more than 17 million deaths. Meanwhile, the Global Fund has saved the lives of 59 million people from the three major pandemics.

How has this been possible? Vaccines, insecticide-treated bed nets and antiretroviral treatments are saving lives, but ensuring that these tools reach people in the world's poorest countries is a big challenge. To meet these access goals, it is essential to have concrete priorities emphasising the presence of financial resources and political leadership to make the biggest impact on people's health.

An urgent ethical imperative

Common concrete priorities. It goes without saying that, despite the significant progress made over the last quarter of a century, the ethical imperative of the Millennium Declaration, which the Sustainable Development Goals have taken forward, remains to be fulfilled. And it is urgently needed. It must also be emphasised that the realisation of the right to the highest attainable standard of health for all people is a legal obligation for all states, stemming from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A global security issue

Furthermore, a key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that glaring health inequalities are a threat to global security. Bridging this gap is an ethical, legal and security priority. A key element of this is to contribute to strengthening the capacity of national health systems, an essential element in the fight against the three major pandemics, vaccination programmes, pandemic preparation and adaptation and mitigation efforts in the face of the climate crisis. This was discussed during the Global Fund's visit to Spain on 11 June at the Ateneo de Madrid at the conference: Challenges in global health: pandemics, climate change and public policies.

More vaccines, against more diseases, delivered faster

Pooling resources and political leadership at the global level. A few days later, on 20 June, both elements were on display at the Global Forum for Vaccine Sovereignty and Innovation: Protecting our Future. Co-hosted by GAVI, France and the African Union, political leaders from around the world gathered in Paris to address the looming challenge of delivering more vaccines, against more diseases, faster. For GAVI to vaccinate an additional 500 million children between 2026 and 2030, saving more than 8 million lives, $9 billion is needed, an amount that will only be achieved if the world's top leaders provide financial resources and political leadership in a turbulent international context of global crises. Spain, through the Director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, Antón Leis, announced an increase of at least 25% in contributions to GAVI over the period 2021-2025.

Spain, committed to global health

Spain has been a strong supporter of both GAVI and the Global Fund since their inception. The events held in June reaffirmed its commitment to both initiatives and their value at a key moment. Spanish cooperation is in the midst of a process of renewal in which global health and its goal of equity can be one of its hallmarks. The value-added contributions that Spain can offer in this area, and above all its life-changing impact on people's health, are a way of changing the world.