Pandemic Response Report Card: Italy
It has been …
… since Prime Minister Mario Draghi said "Successful vaccination campaigns and coordinated action from governments and central banks have allowed the global economy to rebound."
Fund the Global Response
We need at least US $52 billion to fund the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022. Grant financing by donor countries accounts for at least US $27.7 billion, or 53%, of this. Governments must act fast to fill this funding gap. To date, US $2.3 billion has been committed by members of the G20.
Dismantle Barriers to Vaccine Supply
Only a handful of countries have the capacity to manufacture vaccines. We need urgent action to share mRNA technology and intellectual property rights, and to adapt existing facilities and acquire the materials needed to scale up vaccine production globally.
Share SDRs for Economic Recovery
The pandemic’s aftershocks continue to devastate the economies of many countries. High-income countries must support more vulnerable nations with all tools available, including Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), an international reserve asset that can help support countries in emergencies. Rechannelling an initial $100 billion of SDRs in 2021 to low income and vulnerable middle income countries is a smart investment in a fairer, greener, and better recovery for everyone. To date, $60 billion has been committed from all advanced economies.
Ambitious Replenishment of the World Bank's IDA20
Deliver doses
Low and lower-middle income countries still need nearly 1.9 billion doses to fully vaccinate 70% of the population by mid-2022. To help close the gap, members of the G20 have promised to share over 2.7 billion doses by mid-2022. To date, 1.31 billion have been delivered. Note: in response to calls from Africa CDC to pause vaccine donations until the second half of 2022, scoring for the delivery of doses was last updated on 17 February 2022 to reflect how well donors delivered on commitments when there were significant constraints on the supply of COVID-19 vaccines. Deliveries and updates to published dose delivery will continue to be monitored.
Italy has not published a dose delivery plan.
What’s next?
Leading the G20 summit in Rome last year, Prime Minister Mario Draghi underlined the necessity for multilateralism to end the pandemic. The summit saw important progress, with a global commitment to support the economic recovery of low-income countries and to meet vaccine targets. But the summit fell short on establishing concrete, time-bound plans to deliver promised vaccines and financing. Alongside many other G7 countries, Italy also pledged to recycle 20% of its Special Drawing Rights allocation to low-income countries, an important step in financing a global economic recovery.
However, Italy only delivered 56.2 million of the 45 million doses it committed to share in 2021. In 2021 Italy committed only $493 million of the requested $890 million contribution to the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A). Italy can do better in 2022 and contribute with its fair share of $666 million to ACT-A.