Yesterday (12/12/21), the Foreign and Development Ministers (FDM) from the world’s richest nations met in Liverpool, where they had an opportunity to discuss global health and the international response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The meeting effectively marks the final moment of the UK’s G7 Presidency this year.

Romilly Greenhill, UK Director of The ONE Campaign, said: “The emergence of the Omicron variant should have been a wake-up call, but instead the G7 Ministers clearly hit the snooze button.

“There have been repeated warnings that failure to deliver enough doses or financial support would increase the risk of new variants emerging. And that’s just what we’ve seen. This meeting should have been the opportunity to reinvigorate the global response to Covid-19. Instead, it leaves the rest of the world still waiting for any real action.

“Sadly this meeting has echoed the rest of the UK’s G7 Presidency – promising little and delivering even less in a moment when we needed to see the real ambition needed to end the pandemic. This raises real questions about the substance that sits behind the Global Britain soundbites – and the Government must urgently raise their game in 2022 and ensure that Britain plays a leading role in tackling this global crisis. Because if we don’t end this pandemic everywhere, we aren’t going to end it anywhere.”