Speech by President von der Leyen on the occasion of the first anniversary of the ACT-Accelerator

Dear Dr Tedros,

Distinguished guests,

I remember very vividly those days of April last year.

The world had been caught by surprise by the pandemic.

And the response of too many leaders was: “My country first”.

We made a different choice.

We knew that we needed to fight this virus not just at home, but in all continents and countries.

From Asia's megacities to Africa's most remote villages.

And for this, we needed to ACT fast and ACT together.

This is how the ACT-Accelerator was born.

I am proud that Europe was part of its inception, from day one.

A special thanks to you, dear Dr Tedros and the team at WHO for getting the ACT-Accelerator off the ground so quickly.

And many thanks also to you, dear Cyril Ramaphosa and dear Erna Solberg for taking on the leadership of the Facilitation Council.

Already in early May 2020, Europe co-hosted a first pledging conference to raise money for this initiative.

Many other pledging events followed suit.

Europe helped raise billions of euros for ACT-Accelerator.

But what I really love about ACT-Accelerator is the team spirit.

ACT wasn't created as a new institution, but a new way of working together.

We all mobilised – the World Health Organisation and national governments, UN agencies and philanthropists, NGOs and the pharma industry.

Because every one of us has something to contribute.

ACT brought together all health actors, and empowered them to do more and better, together.

Thanks to this co-operation, ACT-Accelerator has achieved so much in so little time.

ACT-Accelerator helped identify a life-saving therapy against COVID.

Thanks to ACT-A, COVID tests are now available in low-income countries for less than 3 dollars.

And its vaccines pillar, COVAX, is now shipping vaccines at an affordable price, or for free, to over one hundred countries.

None of us could do this alone.

But together, we achieved a miracle.

Every cent that we put into ACT-Accelerator has been a good investment.

And we will need more of this in the months ahead. Because the pandemic is far from over.

We need ACT-Accelerator perhaps even more than one year ago.

To track the virus as it evolves.To scale-up manufacturing. To deliver vaccines to all corners of the world.

ACT-Accelerator has a funding gap of 22 billion dollars.

The European Commission has just doubled its contribution.

And let me invite all governments, but also the private sector to step up.

Because this is how we can end the pandemic.

Joining forces, as a team. As team human.

This is the spirit of ACT-Accelerator, and Europe is playing for the team.

Happy Birthday ACT Accelerator!