Canada is a recognised anchor donor of the Vaccine Alliance – leading global efforts to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment and reduce the burden of infectious diseases through vaccination. Gavi’s immunisation strategy was further supported by Canada’s 2018 G7 Presidency priorities: immunisation impacts girls and boys, families and economies. This approach is foundational to equitable growth and jobs, mitigating the health impacts of climate change, and building resilient systems and vaccine stockpiles to both prevent and respond to global health security threats.

Since 2002 Canada has invested more than Canadian $1 billion to Gavi core programming and is a founding donor of the Pneumococcal Advance Market Commitment (AMC). Between 2002 and 2010 Canada contributed US$ 277 million to Gavi including US$ 152 million in direct contributions and US$ 125 million through the AMC. Canada’s total commitment to the AMC is US$ 200 million.

In 2011, as part of Gavi’s first replenishment, Canada pledged Canadian $65 million in direct contributions to Gavi for 2011–2015. In 2013, Canada confirmed a direct grant of Canadian $20 million for Gavi’s measles supplementary immunisation activities. In 2014, Canada contributed two additional Canadian $20 million grants to support the Vaccine Alliance’s Immunisation Supply Chain Strategy and francophone countries’ immunisation activities respectively. These contributions were made in line with the Muskoka Initiative.

In the lead-up to Gavi’s second replenishment, Canada pledged Canadian $500 million to Gavi to support immunisation in developing countries for the period 2016–2020, more than doubling the nation’s previous total contributions. Building upon this commitment, a further Canadian $20 million was pledged in January 2015 and has been allocated to Gavi’s innovation accelerator, INFUSE, for Francophone Africa. This commitment makes Canada the leading donor to INFUSE – underscoring the administration’s leadership in innovation.

In May 2020, in the lead-up to the Global Vaccine Summit, Canada pledged Canadian $600 million to support Gavi’s efforts to deliver life-saving vaccines to children in the world’s lowest-income countries. This support arrived as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted immunisation services in the lowest-income countries across the world.

Canada’s commitment and global response to the pandemic was further accentuated through their Canadian $440 million pledge to the Gavi COVAX AMC to develop and deploy equitable distribution of effective and safe vaccines to lower- and middle-income countries. In addition, Canada committed Canadian $75 million for the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines; Canadian $5 million supported the design and operationalisation of the COVAX dose sharing mechanism. In February 2022, Canada pledged an additional Canadian $35 million in support of COVAX’s dose sharing mechanism (Canadian $5 million) and Gavi’s COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Support (Canadian $30 million).

Furthermore, on 8 April 2022, at the Break COVID Now Summit, Canada reaffirmed its support for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines by pledging an additional Canadian $220 million to Gavi.