End Polio Now

At the Global Vaccine Summit in April 2013, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) presented their comprehensive six year plan to eradicate polio. Global leaders and individual philanthropists signaled their confidence in this new end game strategy by pledging close to three-quarters of the plan’s projected US$5.5 billion cost over six years.

The new plan capitalizes on the best opportunity to eradicate polio, with the number of children paralyzed by this disease at the lowest level ever: just 223 cases in 2012 and only 22 so far this year.

Rotary members have been advocating for government support of the polio eradication program through meetings with world leaders and public awareness events to deliver financial commitments in support of the new end game strategy.

These advocacy efforts played a key role in global leaders announcing their confidence in the plan’s ability to achieve a lasting polio-free world by 2018 and their pledged financial and political support for its implementation.

Bill Gates announced that his foundation would commit one-third of the total cost of the GPEI’s budget over the plan’s six-year implementation, for a total of $1.8 billion.

Joining Gates was a new group of individual philanthropists that announced its support for full implementation of the new plan. The total new pledges from philanthropists to the polio initiative amounted to an additional US$335 million toward the plan’s six-year budget.

Philanthropies making commitments include:

Albert L. Ueltschi Foundation: $10 million

Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation-Global:  $30 million

Bloomberg Philanthropies: $100 million

Carlos Slim Foundation: $100 million

Dalio Foundation: $50 million

The Foundation for a Greater Opportunity established by Carl C. Icahn: $20 million

The Tahir Foundation: $25 million

Government commitments to the end game strategy include:

$457 million:  United Kingdom

$250 million: Canada

$240 million: Norway

$150 million: Germany

$120 million:  Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi

$40 million: Nigeria

These pledges will  help the program to immunize more than one billion children and will bring the dream of creating a polio-free world closer to a reality. However, there is a need to raise an additional US$1.5 billion to ensure that the new plan can be fully implemented and all children can be reached with the vaccine.  Every donation makes a difference in our ability to reach children in the most vulnerable areas of the world with this and other life-saving health interventions.  Make a contribution and join the global effort to End Polio Now!