Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, buys and helps deliver childhood vaccines for the poorest countries. Every five years it asks donors to fund the next period. On June 25, 2025, in Brussels, it asked for $11.9 billion for 2026 to 2030 and came away with more than $9 billion.
Who paid and who did not
- Team Europe (the EU and member states) pledged more than €2 billion.
- The Gates Foundation pledged $1.6 billion, the largest single pledge.
- The United States, historically Gavi’s largest government donor at roughly $300 million a year, pledged nothing. In a recorded message to the summit, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the administration would end US contributions.
Gavi’s plan for the period is to immunize about 500 million children and, by its own estimate, prevent more than 8 million deaths. A quarter less money does not translate one-for-one into a quarter fewer children reached, because Gavi can reprioritize, ask countries to co-finance more, and negotiate prices. But it does mean slower rollout of the newer, costlier vaccines: malaria, HPV, and the pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines in the countries that do not yet have them.
Why this is a story about your dollar
Gavi is not a charity that small donors fund; its money comes from governments and a few large foundations. The relevance is indirect, and it runs in two directions.
First, it changes what is fully funded. When a multilateral like Gavi is flush, private donors funding the same vaccines are duplicating. When it is short, the programs that fill the cracks, such as paying for the last-mile delivery that Gavi’s budget does not cover, or paying parents small incentives to bring infants for routine shots, become more valuable at the margin.
GiveWell’s top charity in this space, New Incentives, does exactly that in northern Nigeria: small cash payments to caregivers at each visit, raising coverage of vaccines Gavi already pays for. GiveWell estimates its cost at roughly $4,500 per life saved. A Gavi shortfall does not make that cheaper, but it makes the vaccines those incentives unlock less likely to be delivered any other way.
Second, it is a preview. The US withdrawal from Gavi came alongside the dismantling of USAID and cuts to PEPFAR and the Global Fund. Each is a separate line item; together they are the largest pullback from global health in the modern aid era. A study in The Lancet published the same week estimated the USAID cuts alone could cost 14 million lives by 2030. We will cover that separately.
What to watch
- Whether Congress restores any Gavi funding in appropriations. The administration’s position is no; Congress has partly overridden similar decisions before.
- Whether the Serum Institute of India and other manufacturers lower prices under pressure from a poorer buyer. (They did, for the malaria vaccine, later in the year.)
- Whether Gavi’s board trims the vaccine portfolio or the country list first. The first hurts newer vaccines; the second hurts the poorest countries.
Method notes
Pledge totals are Gavi’s own from the summit. The US annual contribution figure is our rounding of recent congressional appropriations (about $300 million a year). Lives-saved targets are Gavi’s estimates for its 2026 to 2030 strategy.
Sources
- Gavi: World leaders recommit to immunisation amid global funding shortfall (June 25, 2025)
- Center for Global Development: Mind the gap, recapping Gavi's pledging summit
- Health Policy Watch: Gavi secures more than $9 billion from donors despite US ambush at pledging event
- Gates Foundation: Record numbers globally pledge Gavi support
Figures come from the cited sources as of the dates shown. Cost-effectiveness estimates change as programs and evidence change; check the source before giving. We are not financial advisers and receive nothing from any charity named here.