Five private sector companies signed-up to the Gavi Matching Fund in 2012.
- CNBC, a world leader in television business news in more than 100 countries, is developing a documentary on public-private partnerships featuring GAVI. The idea emerged at the GAVI Matching Fund meeting in Davos 2012, which was attended by CNBC CEO Mark Hoffman. On the spot, he committed CNBC airtime and resources to help raise public awareness of GAVI and the importance of childhood immunisation. The documentary is targeted to air by early Q2 2013.
- Comic Relief, a UK-based charity that fights poverty and social injustice through the power of entertainment, joined the GAVI Matching Fund following last year’s breakfast meeting. It now has committed US$ 12 million to GAVI. Comic Relief featured immunisation during its BBC telethon in April viewed by 6 million people, and it has helped spotlight immunisation for a fundraising video that is now being broadcast on every British Airways flight.
- “la Caixa” Foundation, part of the large Spanish savings bank, has been a GAVI private sector partner since 2008, and a founding member of the GAVI Matching Fund. It has contributed US$ 5.7 million through the initiative (US$22 million to GAVI overall), including from its partners in the Business Alliance for Child Vaccination. In 2012, football powerhouse Atletico Madrid joined the Business Alliance and has been helping to bring visibility to the cause of child immunisation through its star striker Radamel Falcao.
- LDS Charities, the volunteer-driven relief and development arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, became a GAVI Matching Fund partner in June, after supporting GAVI’s double rollout of rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines in Ghana last April. Its volunteers arranged for 1.5 million text messages to be sent in support of the rollouts and now has pledged US$ 4.5 million to GAVI through the Matching Fund.
- Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile communications companies, is the most recent company to join the GAVI Matching Fund and its first in-kind participant. Vodafone now is working with GAVI to examine how mobile technology can help increase childhood vaccination levels in sub-Saharan Africa. Vodafone’s participation, valued at US$ 1.5 million and matched by the UK, was sparked by the attendance of its CEO, Vittorio Colao, at the 2012 Matching Fund breakfast in Davos.
