 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us here today for the fourth press conference we had on day two of the World Economic Forum annual meeting. This is a very important one, not just in terms of the message and the achievements we're about to hear about. But it's also a reflection of an initiative which was born out of this annual meeting itself 15 years ago. This is Gavi at 15. It's how a Davos-born idea has seen half a billion children immunised and it's boosting efforts to end extreme poverty. We have a packed panel so I don't want to monopolise any more of your time. I will therefore briefly introduce my panel and invite them to make opening remarks. Hopefully we'll have time for some questions before the end of this half hour is up. To my immediate left, I'm honored to be joined by his Excellency Ibrahim Bubakar Khay to the President of Mali. Dr. Seth Barkley, Chief Executive Officer of Gavi the Vaccine Alliance. Amina Mohamed, Assistant Secretary-General, Special Advisor on Post-2015 Development Planning. Christian Paradis, Minister for International Development and for La Francophonie, the Government of Canada. And Dr. Maria Furt-Vangela Burda, who is the one ambassador for child health. I'd like to start by inviting the President to make a few opening remarks. The President will be speaking in French and there will be a translator. Thank you very much. I would like to say how proud we are of the Gavi Alliance, the Vaccine Alliance, and that we continue to play our role through the co-financement. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to say first of all that we are very proud to be members of the Vaccine Alliance and we are playing our part through co-financing within the Gavi Alliance. Actually what we need is to have very robust and solid vaccination immunization programs so that to be able to also serve and help out the future generation. So this is actually the critical and essential the way that we are collaborating, cooperating with Gavi. Mali commitment to our children in Mali is very strong because we believe that they are the future of our country. We know that we have so many things to do in Mali and we have been able to make progress, certainly in stating that we have been able to increase the coverage by over 30 percent from where it was before that in 2000. Increasing the coverage of immunization in Mali is not an easy task, particularly when you know that you are aware of the fact that we have been through a very serious crisis of the history of our country, but we have managed and despite that situation to make progress on the rate of coverage of immunization in Mali. Because we do believe firmly in the powerful protection that the vaccination immunization can bring, particularly to children in Mali. We know that health is really the basis of everything. You cannot really hope about economic development and progress if you do not have the resources, the human resources to help in that increase in economic rate and development and to have these resources to be in good state of health. That is why investing in health is critical as far as we are concerned. We have seen actually with the epidemics of the Ebola-Hemorrhagic fever, we need to respond to that situation very swiftly. To be able to detect, to be able to heal and to be able to face the situation of that epidemic in our region. Of course we can get results when we have a trained and well trained health system in our country. We will soon find a vaccine against the Ebola-Hemorrhagic fever. Vaccines are powerful technology that help us not only with fighting against pneumonia, against diarrhea, but we have the two of our big child killers, which are missiles that we hope also that we will be able to come up with a vaccine against Ebola very soon. We obviously welcome the Alliance's recent board decision to support the rollout of Ebola vaccines as soon as they are pre-qualified for that. And also we hope that we will be able very soon to be able to implement those in our country. That is why I look forward to that we will be able to be meeting in one week's time in Berlin together with Chancellor Merkel. So that we can come out stronger against the diseases that are threatening our children. And for the children of the world and for the good of the health system. Thank you. Thank you so much and the President said a lot of the important things I would say. But I think it's important to keep in mind that the great problems of the world aren't going to be solved by the UN alone, by government alone, by the private sector alone. It requires these new and innovative partnerships. And that's a lot of what the World Economic Forum is about and that's why it's so appropriate. This was born here at the WEF as you heard 15 years ago and has taken this to scale. It's a model of scale but it's also a model of sustainability. And half a billion children reached and 7 million deaths prevented. It's an extraordinary set of accomplishments. But it's important as we look at the global issues and I know Amina will talk about this. The fact that the MDGs were set up, the Millennium Development Goals, was an important way to focus interest. And so MDG-4, which is a reduction of child mortality by two-thirds, we won't quite meet that globally. But we will have brought it down more than 50 percent, which is an extraordinary accomplishment, particularly given since population has gone up during this period. And since 2000, if you look at this, 50 percent of the reduction in child mortality came from just three diseases, measles, diarrhea, and pneumonia, things that are being targeted by these new and powerful vaccines that we have. So this is a really important issue. We now have vaccines against cancer. And so the challenge is how do we get these out to every person in the world? We already have a technology. These technologies are the most widely technologies used in the world. 95 percent of people on Earth are touched by them, but we need to do a better job to get all of the vaccines out. So that's really the message. As you've heard, we will be meeting on Tuesday in Berlin to try to raise $7.5 billion additional dollars. And if fully funded, Gavi will be able to immunize an additional 300 million children and prevent another five to six million deaths, which will have economic benefits of between $80 and $100 billion. Thank you very much. Amina, you're very busy at the moment with the development goals. Tell us about that a little bit and give us some context as to why you're supporting this initiative and this institution. Well, thank you very much, and Excellency President Keita of Miley. It's really an important opportunity for the Secretary General to say a few words. If you don't mind, I'd like to read some of what he wanted to transmit in a message to support what has been an incredible initiative. Certainly reinforcing that still too many women and children are dying from causes of simple immunization could prevent. And he has seen how preventable diseases take away the precious lives far too soon. A proud champion of promoting the upcoming Gavi replenishment because it is right for individuals and societies and when women and children are healthy, classrooms are fuller, workplaces are more productive, and whole economies can be transformed. Applauding the announcement of Gavi saving the seven million lives and half a billion people that have been immunized since inception. This has had an enormous impact in the individual lives and of families. We also know that Gavi is working to ensure a fundamental human right that where a child is born should never determine whether he or she has access to life saving vaccinations. All mothers want their children to survive and all children deserve the best possible start in life. The partnership with Gavi continues with countries in the lead and it gets vaccines to the people and the hardest to reach places where they're most needed. And when we have the resources for Gavi, it does its job and we've seen it going to scale. It also advances what is important right now, the global strategy for the Secretary General's initiative on every woman, every child. And this year we're completing the work of the Millennium Development Goals and aiming to adopt a new agenda for a sustainable development future. A renewed global strategy which reinforces the work of Gavi is one that we will hope accelerate progress and we thank Gavi for really helping us to boost this strategy. So here together sending a very strong message to the world that the lives of women and children matter for our common future. A fully resourced Gavi is part of our goal that leaves no one behind and we're applauding countries that have already made pledges but the Secretary General very firmly would like to advocate and call on all countries to make strong pledges in the upcoming replenishment conference and ensure that we reach the target of 7.5 billion. That's his remarks. Mine are that there is a development framework that is about to be addressed and hopefully gaveled in September this year. A large part of that depends on the financing conference in Addis this year and I think that this is where the moment of opportunity for the world really exists. It's a process that has involved everyone. Incredible experience just in two days that I've been here where people who have been involved with this process over the last two years are actually speaking to these issues now and really looking to see how do we make a sustainable development framework work for people at the centre but so the planet sensitive and have the resources to do so. Thank you very much. Christine Parody, Canada has been a key investor in GAVI for some time now. Please give us some thoughts on why this continues to be a good investment. Thank you. Merci beaucoup. Je suis très heureux d'être ici pour célébrer le 15e anniversaire de GAVI. Ces accomplissements et ce qui s'en vient également en term de conférence pour la reconstruction du fonds à Berlin la semaine prochaine. It's a pleasure for me to be here to célébrer the 440 million children reached with life savings vaccination since GAVI's creation in 2000 to celebrate the 6 million lives saved since 2000 and we're all proud of that success. And it is wonderful that we are taking a moment to celebrate today but we must also remember that more than 22 million children around the world are still not fully immunized and 1.5 million children under 5 die of vaccine preventable diseases every year and it is within our power to do something about this and we know that immunization works, we believe in this. It is one of the best investments we can make to save lives and improve the health of children, their families, communities and countries. We need to work together as a global community to ensure that in Berlin on January 27th, GAVI is fully funded and able to action its 2016-2020 strategy. A very promising strategy. It is our collective responsibility to the world's children. I am proud to say that Canada has already stepped up in the plate. At the Francophonie Summit in Senegal in November 2014 Prime Minister Harper pledged $500 million for GAVI's 2016-2020 strategy and announced an additional $20 million to strengthen immunization programs for children in Central and West African Francophone countries. These pledges are part of Canada's commitment to improving the health of the world's modern newborns and children or top development priority. Canada urges global leaders to step up and mobilize the resources that GAVI needs to keep saving lives. I am also proud that Canada is a founding donor of the Advanced Market Commitment to Make Vaccines for Pneumonia which kills nearly 3,000 children every day available in 46 developing countries more quickly. The Advanced Market Commitment is an example of how innovative financing can work to save lives. The Advanced Market Commitment has created incentives for vaccine makers to quickly produce affordable vaccines that are suitable for the world's poorest countries. As a chair of the Redesigning Development Finance Initiative Steering Committee I am very proud of this and I want to see more of this kind of innovative financing working to benefit of the world's most vulnerable. As Amina just said, at this conference is coming we need to act together on this. As Dr. Berkley said, it cannot be done alone. We have all to work together and that is why Canada is focusing on exploring creative ways to engage the private sector to contribute to sustainable development and improve global health. Until national development and global health are now the demand of multi-stakeholder partnerships for a cross-section of society. The private sector is a key to this because it has the resources, expertise and innovation that we need to create new and more effective products, services and technologies. So let us celebrate our successes today but let us also turn our minds to how we can be innovative in our thinking and continue to deliver tangible results for the world's children. And let us once again congratulate Gavi on 15 successful years of saving lives. Thank you very much. Thank you. Last but not least, Dr. Maria Fertvenkler. Your remarks please. Yes, thank you first of all. It's a great honour for me to support the effort of Gavi in this incredible work you've done, you especially, Seth, admirable. It's a great pleasure for me to support this coming from Germany. I know that Germany plays an important role, not only as a donor, not as important, I believe, as Canada is, but certainly quite a good contributor to the Gavi effort. And of course Germany is this year hosting the G7, so I'm very proud and happy that our Chancellor Merkel is going to host the dinner and the conference, the replenishment conference next week. So I'm very happy and proud to support this and I talked to Chancellor Merkel yesterday and she's really very dedicated to that cause. And beyond that, I'm of course happy to support as a mother because I'm totally aware how terrifying, terrible it must be as a mother when you can't give your children what they could have, what they would need to survive their childhood, their early childhood. And I'm incredibly happy if it's possible to give because seven million child death means nearly seven million mothers grieving, nearly seven million mothers not having been able giving their children the best they could have. And as a physician I must say I've been working in Nairobi and Slumsdale and Kolkata and on the Philippines and to me when I was a young doctor I was always very proud because it was so easy to save lives, you know, a little baby coming with diarrhea, you give some infusion of liquid, basically, and you could save a life. Pneumonia, we had the antibiotics we could treat it and it was very satisfying for me as a young doctor. But then of course I realized, okay, but for the maybe hundred children I've seen in these few weeks suffering from diarrhea and pneumonia, how many are not able to reach the ambulance from the German doctors, how many out there in the slums in the jungle are not able to travel, cannot afford that. And to me it's an incredibly powerful idea that through this vaccination, through simple vaccination against the most common bacteria that cause diarrhea and pneumonia we can save those lives of those children that can't make it, you know, any doctor shelter. I think this is a wonderful thing to do and I'm proud to be part of this. Thank you very much. Thank you. We do have time for some questions. This is a show of hands for anyone. Ben, we all know you, but for the benefit of our online audience and our speakers here please give us your name and your title. Ben Hirschler from Reuters. I wonder if Seth, if you can comment a bit on how confident you are of hitting the 7.5 billion you need next week in Berlin and where do you think the reticence might be amongst the donors? So we've had extremely strong support and just to re-emphasize again I can't say how much Germany has done and not only the Chancellor personally but the diplomatic service has been fabulous but many other champions, the Canadian Prime Minister has weighed in, Bill and Melinda Gates have weighed in, the Prime Minister of the UK, et cetera, et cetera. So we've had very strong support and of course I am an optimistic person. I will say that the change in exchange rates has affected us pretty dramatically in that of course we made our original requests now almost seven months ago and exchange rates have dramatically changed so that is a challenge that we will be having in front of us and will be discussed by the donors at that time in fact are being discussed ahead of time but we are optimistic because at the end of the day and as Amina has said having a fully funded Gavi is absolutely critical to be able to make sure that these access to vaccines is untreaded for all those who really need it. Thank you. Any other questions? Gentlemen at the back, yes. Graham. Graham Whedon from the Guardian. Two questions please. Are there any large countries in particular who you're disappointed haven't made some commitments or hints of support yet? Secondly, on the exchange rate issue are you considering loathing the target? So on those two issues first of all you know we not every country has stepped forward and made a commitment as the UK has, as Canada has, have others have done prospectively some are holding it for that day so you know in a sense we won't know until that day finally where we end up with and that's why that meeting is so important. Your second question was? Is it lowering targets because of the exchange rates? Yeah, the issue is is that we purchase our vaccines in dollars and that's the currency we work in a couple in Euro but most of it is negotiated in dollars and therefore if we don't end up with that adequate finance then we won't be able to pay for those vaccines but of course this is something as I said that we're all discussing and the thing about exchange rates is that it's going down and so this is something that we always have to deal with once we get finance of course we hedge against currency exchanges but you can't do that from pledges so. Anyone else? Well with almost classic Swiss timing it's 3.30 and we all have busy schedules to attend to and pick up so I'll close this press conference I'd like to thank my panel for joining us I'd like to wish you the very best webcast platform WeForum.org Thank you Thank you