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Developing countries have been hit with an endless tide of inadequate gestures and broken promises from rich countries and pharmaceutical companies, who are failing to deliver billions of doses they promised while blocking the real solutions to vaccine inequality, according to a new report published today by the People’s Vaccine Alliance. 

Patients living in poverty in the Global South are being bankrupted by private healthcare corporations backed by multi-million-dollar investments from development finance institutions (DFIs) run by the UK, French, German and other rich country governments. DFIs like the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) invest public funds via the private sector to help foster economic development in the Global South and tackle poverty. However, Oxfam published two investigations on DFI funding into private hospital chains and other for-profit healthcare corporations operating in low- and middle-income countries and found cases of them.   

“People have become complacent about COVID-19. Our global (health) funds are fast running out of money. Vaccine inequity is getting worse,” said former UK prime minister Gordon Brown today. 

International development organizations Oxfam, Plan, Eurodad and Concern Worldwide called today on EU leaders, meeting tomorrow for the first time to examine Europe’s role as a global power, to shift gear in their response to Pakistan.

Faltering overseas aid figures announced today are depriving poor countries of a massive $18bn worth of life-saving aid, at a time when 64 million more people globally have been pushed into poverty by the financial crisis.

The international community must plug a $2 billion funding gap for countries hit by El Nino-related drought and storms. These have left a staggering 60 million people around the world facing crop failures and worsening hunger.

Meeting today in Brussels, European Finance Ministers failed to take bold action against tax evasion and avoidance, leaving a great deal still to be achieved at next week’s EU leaders’ summ

Today the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted in favor of tightening the cap on biofuels competing with food production for land and other precious resources, such as water.

Today, EU Development Ministers meeting at the Foreign Affairs Council approved conclusions on social protection in development cooperation.

Following a vote in the European Parliament on the EU budget for 2019, Oxfam is concerned that the EU continues to prioritize migration management at the expense of humanitarian action and sustainable development.