After a year of challenges, Gavi can look forward with optimism
When the history of global health is written, it is likely that 2025 will be seen as a turning point.
- 30 January 2026
- 3 min read
- by Sania Nishtar
2025 was a year that saw unprecedented cuts to official development assistance (ODA) alongside increasing fragility in many of Gavi’s partner countries, as conflict and climate-related shocks put more lives and health at risk.
Against this backdrop, Gavi faced three major challenges.
First, while our replenishment can be judged to have been a success given the external environment, we fell US$ 2 billion short of our funding target.
This necessitated a careful recalibration of our 2026-30 strategy. This process, a first for Gavi, lasted six months, beginning with a rigorous review of evidence followed by thorough stakeholder consultation.
This was a very challenging process, knowing that every trade-off we make will have an impact on children’s lives. However, I am confident that the plan we presented to the Board represented the best possible outcome in terms of health impact, given the constraints.
The difficult decisions of 2025 have given us a strong foundation for success, through simpler ways of working and a renewed emphasis on how we support countries. This, after all, is what really matters most.
The second challenge was to restructure the Gavi Secretariat in preparation for our new strategic period.
While our original plan was to return our workforce to pre-pandemic levels, a second wave of restructuring was necessitated by our funding shortfall. This meant that, instead of reducing by 25%, our headcount will be 33% smaller this year.
Our restructuring followed a clear, rules-based approach, with great attention paid to rethinking our ways of working, including the addition of roles in some areas to ensure we will be able to successfully execute our new strategy. We now have a clear organisational structure that is perfectly aligned with our new strategy.
Implementation of the Gavi Leap was our third challenge. Initiated in 2024, the Gavi Leap is an ambitious transformation programme which has been shaped in the context of a rapidly changing global health ecosystem.
With the goal of radically simplifying our ways of working, implementation began in earnest last year as we sought to streamline our country operating interface to respect country sovereignty, give countries more agency to deploy Gavi resources, and drive efficiency through an end-to-end digitisation of our grant management process.
I want to sincerely and wholeheartedly thank all colleagues in Gavi, our Board, partner agencies and other stakeholders who worked under difficult circumstances and considerable time pressure to help us overcome these challenges.
Alongside navigating these changes, we kept our eye on our core business in 2025. I am glad to report that last year we saw strong progress towards our 2021–2025 strategic goals with a record 300 million vaccine doses delivered. We also exceeded our ambitious target of reaching 86 million girls with the HPV vaccine and reached 24 countries malaria vaccines.
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As we enter our sixth strategic period, our Gavi Leap reforms are well on the way to being fully implemented. This positions Gavi well to operate in a rapidly changing world. In the context of the challenges facing the global health architecture, the Gavi Leap is proof that reform is possible. We are committed to playing a responsible role by sharing our learnings with other organisations contemplating reform journeys of their own.
I humbly believe that all the hard work of the past year enables us to look forward with optimism. The difficult decisions of 2025 have given us a strong foundation for success, through simpler ways of working and a renewed emphasis on how we support countries. This, after all, is what really matters most.
