International advocacy organization Global Citizen tonight announced that the VAX LIVE: The Concert to Reunite the World campaign helped mobilize over 26 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and $302 million to the ACT-Accelerator to provide equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests, treatments and other medical tools to the world's most marginalized communities and healthcare workers on the frontlines.
VAX LIVE was taped at SoFi Stadium for a COVID 19-compliant audience composed of fully-vaccinated frontline healthcare and essential workers, and is the first large-scale music event held at the stadium. The goal of the VAX LIVE campaign was to ensure everyone, everywhere has access to COVID-19 vaccines and inspire vaccine confidence worldwide.
Selena Gomez served as host of the special and Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, served as Campaign Chairs. Performers included Jennifer Lopez, Eddie Vedder, Foo Fighters, J Balvin and H.E.R. Special appearances were made by President Biden, First Lady Dr Biden and Vice President Harris along with Ben Affleck, Chrissy Teigen, David Letterman, Gayle King, Jimmy Kimmel, Nomzamo Mbatha, Olivia Munn and Sean Penn.
The VAX LIVE campaign called on governments to begin sharing vaccine doses immediately, and for pharmaceutical companies such as Moderna, to urgently provide millions of doses to the poorest nations at cost pricing. And to help ensure equitable access to the vaccine, Global Citizen and its partners led a coordinated drive across the private sector to raise critical funds – "dollars for doses" – for the vaccine-sharing program COVAX AMC.
VAX LIVE: The Concert to Reunite the World received messages of support and commitments from His Holiness Pope Francis, President of the United States Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, Vice-President of the United States Kamala Harris, President of France Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, as well as Prime Minister Plenković of Croatia Andrej Plenković, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and European Commision President Ursula von der Leyen, Prime Minister of Norway Erna Solberg, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation Her Excellency Reem al Hashimy and Minister of Health of Portugal Marta Temido.
Commitments announced through the course of the VAX LIVE campaign and special included:
GOVERNMENT COMMITMENTS
- Canada: CAD 375 million [$299.2 million] towards the ACT-Accelerator for COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments to support countries in need.
- Norway: will share all of its surplus doses, an additional 4.5 million doses on top of the 700,000 doses it has already committed. This translates to one dose being shared for every Norwegian Citizen.
- Spain: will donate 7.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses for the Latin American and Carribean region.
- The UAE: will donate 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and support the delivery of 25 million doses.
- New Zealand: will share an additional 200,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses for a total of 1.2M for the South Pacific region.
- Croatia pledged €500,000 [$600,000] to COVAX and will start donating 50,000 doses before the end of June.
- Portugal: will bring forward the delivery of its commitment to provide 1 million doses to Portuguese speaking countries to begin in June 2021.
- Italy: expressed its intentions to make a substantial new pledge to COVAX soon. Italy will also use its G20 presidency to boost global manufacturing capacity.
PHILANTHROPIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR COMMITMENTS
Philanthropic and corporate commitments raised $39.6 million for COVAX, which was matched by GAVI for an additional $23.6 million, resulting in a total of $63.3 million, enough to acquire 12.66 million vaccines. Combined with government pledges this amounts to over 26 million vaccine doses to those most in need.
SPECIFIC COMMITMENTS MADE TOWARD THE COVAX AMC FOR PROCUREMENT OF VACCINES:
- Mastercard will be contributing $25 million
- Cisco will be contributing $5 million
- Procter & Gamble will be contributing $5 million
- The Analog Devices Foundation will be contributing $1 million
- Seadream Family Foundation will be contributing $1 million
- Stanley Black & Decker will be contributing $1 million
- Coca-Cola Foundation will be contributing $500 thousand
- Spotify will be contributing $500 thousand
- Alight Solutions will be contributing $250 thousand
- Centene Charitable Foundation will be contributing $250 thousand
- BlackBerry will be contributing $160 thousand
COMMITMENTS MADE TOWARD THE WHO COVID-19 SOLIDARITY FUND FOR MEDICAL TOOLS AND SUPPLIES INCLUDED:
- Accenture will be contributing $1 million
- Terumo will be contributing $1 million
- Spotify will be contributing $500 thousand
Overall, $65.8M has been mobilized through VAX LIVE by philanthropists, the private sector, and the Gavi matching mechanism in commitments to vaccine procurement, medical tools and supplies.
"We have been overwhelmed by the support for VAX LIVE, from governments, philanthropists, the private sector, our campaign chairs, and Global Citizens from across the world, who have joined forces to mobilize critical COVID-19 vaccines where they are needed urgently," said Hugh Evans, CEO of Global Citizen. "But more needs to be done especially from G7 nations that have yet to commit to sharing any doses. The UK alone will have 113 million surplus doses. We need to continue our efforts to urge the chair of the G7, Boris Johnson, the rest of the G7 and G20 nations, and vaccine manufacturers to share additional doses urgently to help ensure equitable vaccine access globally."
VAX LIVE: The Concert to Reunite the World aired on ABC, ABC News Live, CBS, FOX, and streamed on YouTube, iHeartMedia broadcast radio stations and the iHeartRadio App. VAX LIVE also aired on AXS TV, Albavision across Latin America, Multishow from Globo Group in Brazil, Caracol TV in Colombia, TV Azteca in Mexico, S3 in South Africa, Canal+ and MultiChoice across Africa, Sky in the UK, Network 10 in Australia, CSTAR (Canal + Group) in France, the Viacom 18 network across India and South Asia, and Insight TV globally. As the exclusive global streaming partner, YouTube also streamed an extended version of VAX LIVE on the Global Citizen channel for a full run-time of 90 minutes.
Global Citizen also announced commitments from long-time partner of Global Citizen, Live Nation, along with the NBA, WNBA, NFL, MLS, NHL, WWE, Formula 1, NASCAR and MLB to commit tickets to some of the most amazing live events of the coming year! These leagues have been working together to follow enhanced COVID-19 guidelines to ensure that audience members can once again enjoy live events safely. The announcement was made public during the broadcast by Ben Affleck and Jimmy Kimmel, and viewers can secure tickets by visiting globalcitizen.org/reunite.
