No more pandemic have-nots. There is no time to waste.

Covid-19 has bifurcated the world like almost nothing else. The wealthiest countries have more than enough vaccine doses with which to protect their people from the ravages of the virus, while the poorest countries do not. Those in the Global North also have the means to stave off economic calamity and social disruption through massive stimulus packages, while hundreds of millions in the Global South have been driven into extreme poverty. This inequitable divide leaves humanity far more vulnerable to the next stage of the pandemic, as well as to any other systemic crisis that may emerge.

As leaders of some of the world’s largest philanthropies, there are two things we know for sure. First, history has taught us that transformational change almost always has been triggered by some deep crisis. Second, only by coming together can the world muster the bold, urgent action needed to reverse the great divergence between the haves and have-nots that we see today. Only through cooperation and coordination can we launch a transformative era of progress.

To that end, the Aliko Dangote Foundation, Archewell Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Chaudhary Foundation in Nepal, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Fundación Saldarriaga Concha, the Kagiso Trust, the Mastercard Foundation, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Oppgen Philanthropies, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation have joined forces to establish a global alliance of foundations. And we are inviting other philanthropies to join our network.

To encourage the necessary global action, our coalition will advocate for two primary objectives. First, the world must assume collective responsibility to achieve the WHO’S ambitious targets to vaccinate at least 40 per cent of the population in lowand middle-income countries by the end of this year, and 70 per cent by September 2022. We call on government leaders and policymakers — including those attending this week’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, DC, and the G20 summit in Rome later this month — to provide the doses, financial resources, and delivery logistics needed to achieve these targets. Governments that have stockpiled hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses must immediately redistribute them to lowvaccination countries before they expire in the coming months. And looking beyond this immediate emergency, we must make critical investments to build long-term pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities in poorer countries, so that we will be prepared for the next global public-health crisis.

Second, to spur global economic recovery, we urge the governments of high-income countries to reallocate at least $100 billion in recycled special drawing rights (SDRS, the IMF’S reserve asset) for low- and middle-income countries in 2021. We also call on them to commit to a $100 billion replenishment of the World Bank’s International Development Association fund to support the pandemic response and economic recovery in the world’s poorest countries.

WITH THE GLOBAL NORTH STILL DRAGGING ITS FEET WHILE BILLIONS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD REMAIN VULNERABLE TO COVID-19