G7 Finance Ministers Repeat Endorsement of AMCs

The G7 Finance Ministers affirmed - but did not add much to - their support for an Advance Market Commitment at their meeting today. According to today's G7 communique

Having endorsed the concept of a pilot Advance Market Commitments for vaccines, we call for the additional work necessary to make its launch possible in 2006.

Owen comments: In bureaucratic terms, this is slightly more forthcoming language than we had before; though in substance it adds little to previous commitments. Technical work will be more focused once we have a clearer idea which diseases the governments want to target for the launch in 2006. Though that has not been announced in today's communique, the discussion at the meeting will give the World Bank and GAVI experts more feel for how the governments want to take this idea forward.