Meeting Highlights

SDI 2020 Meeting Highlights

That's all for now...

Thank you for following the World Economic Forum's Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2020 on here and social media #sdi20.

Deploying a COVID-19 Vaccine - Part 2

With efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine racing ahead, leaders face the unprecedented challenge of manufacturing and distributing a vaccine worldwide. How can stakeholders work together to ensure a safe, effective and globally accessible vaccine?

Panellists include Seth F. Berkley, Chief Executive Officer, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Geneva, Julie Gerberding, Executive Vice-President and Chief Patient Officer, Strategic Communications, Global Public Policy and Population Health, MSD, USA, Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI), Norway, Sai Prasad, President, DCVMN, Switzerland.

Seth F. Berkley, Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, said: "The critical issue here is that a vaccine is the way we're going to get out of this pandemic...The challenge is should those go to a few who are able to pay and get high coverage, leaving the rest of the countries with no vaccine? Or should we have a district distribution across the world?" He believes frontline health workers were likely to any vaccine first, and then higher risk populations.

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Sai Prasad, President, DCVMN, said: "We are at the beginning of the beginning. As you know, vaccine development takes decades. We are just at the end of the first year, and we have a few candidates that are moving forward. None of them are successful yet. Time will tell over the next three to four months as to which one of these candidates will be successful."

Julie Gerberding, Executive Vice-President and Chief Patient Officer, Strategic Communications, Global Public Policy and Population Health, MSD, said: "Most countries are not going to neglect safety checks...In fact, the major vaccine manufacturers signed a vaccine pledge just very recently promising that they would adhere to safety requirements of the regulatory agents and not jump ahead of the curve in an effort to so-called win the race." She also warned: "We have to make sure that while we're fighting this pandemic, we're preparing for the next. I do believe it's only a matter of time. Now is the time to prepare."

Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations, said besides the logistics of distributing a vaccine, there will be a challenges around getting all actors to work together. He said: "How do you create a system that balances the different incentives of the different stakeholders to work together in a collaborative way?"

Building a Sustainable Ocean Recovery

The Prime Minister of Saint Lucia Allen Chastanet said that despite some progress not enough was being done to invest in the blue economy.

The combination of three shocks - climate change, the financial crisis of 2008/9 and the pandemic - have depleted financial reserves, he said.

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Small island states have not got the resources to invest in the blue economy, he said, asking for help and calling for the creation of an equity fund for the Caribbean.

We can't make progress until we solve the funding problem, he said.

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Countering COVID-19 Shocks in Fragile Contexts

Due to growing challenges and inadequate resources, between 70 and 100 million people could slide into extreme poverty in 2020 and 2 million preventable deaths could occur because of health disruption.

How can governments, investors, humanitarian and development actors work together to build resilience for future shocks?

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi opens the session by saying: "There are almost 80 million refugees and displaced people. They represent only a fraction of the total number of vulnerable people that are impacted in different ways by Covid-19. But I think it is quite illustrative to talk about refugees because the impact on them exemplifies very much what happens to others from the health point of view."

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Peter Laugharn, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, says: "We've should be looking at effective multi-stakeholder partnerships between government, intergovernmental organisations, businesses, civil society and philanthropy."

Wissam Rabadi, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation of Jordan, points out the unique problems his country faces regarding Covid-19. "We realise that this global recession is likely to drive significant reduction in official development aid and assistance, which is extremely alarming," he says.

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Katherine Garrett-Cox, Chief Executive Officer of Gulf International Bank, says: "We need to mobilise capital. And so I think the ask is, if you're in a coroprate, put this topic of data and how we buid it onto your corporate agenda."

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Image: World Bank

Including LGBTI Populations in the Response to COVID-19

COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on LGBTI and vulnerable populations, increasing existing inequalities.

What actions can be taken to ensure that the responses leave no one behind and contribute to achieving the 2030 Agenda?

Victor Madrigal-Borloz, Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, United Nations opened the session by saying: "We had reasonable assumptions that during this type of situation there is usually an escalation of risk of discrimination and also hate speech and incitement to violence and discrimination. And in fact, this proved to be the case."

Jessica Stern, Executive Director of OutRight Action International, said: "OutRight understood at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic that we were at grave risk of seeing heightened vulnerability (of LGBTI people)...Those who were most vulnerable before the crisis continue to be vulnerable during the crisis, and can without urgent interventions slip even further through the cracks. So that's people who are discriminated against based on the colour of their skin, their faith, their sexual orientation or gender identity, or their status as migrants."

She was also concerned about how organisations like hers will be find funding as the pandemic continues. She said: "We depend on charitable contrinutions in all forms...how are we going to sustain our organisations when people are suffering financially?"

Lori George Billingsley, Global Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for The Coca-Cola Company, said: "We know that feelings of isolation, anxiety and depression are on the rise universally and support groups which specifically serve the LGBTI community are becoming harder to access." She says the firm's LGBTI Business Rescource Group has established an active online presence using digital workplace tools such as Yammer.

André du Plessis, Executive Director of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, says: "I think we've seen companies leveraging their social media impact to call out sometimes the way that we've been scapegoated as communities for Covid-19."

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