Equity and sources for pandemic preparedness financing

To underscore their demands for equity in the pandemic agreement, 19 WHO Member States joined together to form the Group for Equity. The Group for Equity currently includes Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania and Thailand. The founding financial members of the Pandemic Fund are: Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, United Arab Emirates and the United States. In addition, the European Commission, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Wellcome Trust are among the founding donor. Subsequently, France, India, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom were added to the list. In total, more than $1.6 billion in financial contributions have been pledged to date. It is unusual that countries in Southeast Asia in particular are also acting as donor countries.