Video Message by Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio at the Second Global COVID-19 Summit
May 10, 2022
[Provisional translation]
President Biden,
Prime Minister Briceño,
Chancellor Scholz,
President Joko,
President Sall,
Ladies and gentlemen,
More than two years have passed since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. Yet, in every corner of the world, people's health remains under threat and economic and social development is hampered.
We must accelerate concrete efforts to end this pandemic, build a better health security system, and achieve universal health coverage (UHC).
Japan will continue to make contributions to the U.S.-led Global Action Plan, particularly the pillar of “Get Shots in Arms” as a lead country. Japan is committed to providing up to 500 million USD to COVAX in addition to the contribution of 1 billion USD already disbursed. We are also committed to making an additional contribution of 300 million USD to CEPI over the next five years. Furthermore, in addition to the approximately 44 million doses of vaccines Japan has donated so far, we have expanded our "Last One Mile Support,” which strengthens transportation and vaccination capacities, to 77 countries and regions in total, and we are implementing it at a scale of approximately 160 million USD.
It is also important to foster local production capacity for pharmaceuticals and medical products, including vaccines. To that end, we have decided to provide assistance of up to 200 million USD through JICA to enhance the capacity in Africa. We intend to contribute to strengthening collaboration on the ground so that these efforts promote vaccinations more effectively.
Japan's assistance to developing countries in response to COVID-19 now reaches approximately 4.5 billion USD in total. Together with our aforementioned new commitment of up to 500 million USD to COVAX, Japan will steadfastly implement assistance totaling approximately 5 billion USD.
We will also actively contribute to strengthening the global health architecture to enhance prevention, preparedness and response to future pandemics in order to foster greater health security. In line with this, we support the establishment of a new fund at the World Bank as a financial mechanism to promote further mobilization of domestic funds and to complement the activities of existing institutions. We will also be actively engaged in working to reform the WHO, develop a new international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and amend the International Health Regulations.
Japan is determined to continue to lead international efforts to achieve UHC, bearing in mind relevant meetings to be hosted by Japan, notably the Japan-Australia-India-U.S. Leaders’ Summit, TICAD 8, and G7 Summit 2023. Thank you very much.