The State Secretary for International Cooperation, Ángeles Moreno Bau, has taken part today, Monday, in the presentation of the 2020 Report on Development Cooperation of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a study that estimates that, due to the pandemic, 115 million people fell into extreme poverty last year.

Entitled “Vaccine equity and resilience building: two tests for global solidarity”, the event included a high-level discussion with political leaders, representatives of international bodies and civil society to discuss how to ensure equal access to vaccines against COVID-19 and the lessons learned with a view to future global impacts.

In her speech, the State Secretary for International Cooperation argued that the only way to resolve this crisis is by “strengthening multilateralism and global governance”, and highlighted the firm commitment of Spanish Cooperation and Spain’s active role in the ACT-A initiative for quick access to vaccines, diagnostic tests and treatments.

During the presentation of the OECD Report, the challenges facing the international community to guarantee that low and medium income countries can be vaccinated under the COVAX initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) were analysed, as was ensuring that 2 billion doses are available by the end of the year.

Among the issues addressed was the problem of financing the vaccines, which requires an additional 2 billion dollars, the need to increase their local production and distribution, and transparency in bilateral agreements between countries and pharmaceutical companies to ensure coherence in domestic and international supply policies.

The OECD Report underlines that ensuring equal and affordable vaccines, resolving structural problems and the necessary reforms and preparing for future crises is not only a question of solidarity, but is also the only economically viable solution to successfully overcome this crisis. In this regard, Ángeles Moreno Bau advocated restructuring the debt of the most vulnerable countries and those on medium income, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, conditioned to compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals.

As regards development cooperation, the OECD Report sets out five priority lines of action for the recovery and resilience of countries: integrating climate action, long-term support for country systems, boosting consistent financing, protecting global public goods and promoting international and coordinated contingency strategies.