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 The document, seen by Reuters, is set to be released on Saturday
without changes at the end of a two-day G20 meeting under way in
Venice, two officials familiar with the talks said.
Ministers remain determined to bring the pandemic under control
"everywhere as soon as possible", the document says. But the G20
does not make any new firm commitment on donations of vaccines and
financial support to a programme co-led by the World Health
Organization (WHO) for the equitable distribution of COVID-19
vaccines, drugs, tests and medical tools.
Ministers are set to agree that the WHO's programme, known as Access
to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), is a key tool to combat the
pandemic.
They are urging the public and private sectors to address the
remaining gaps in the programme "including through the equitable
global sharing of safe, effective, quality and affordable vaccine
doses", the document says.
It also says finance ministers will "prioritise acceleration of the
delivery of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics".
In documents shared before the meeting with the G20 presidency,
which is currently held by Italy, the WHO said that the ACT-A still
needs nearly $17 billion to meet its targets for this year, which is
about half of its original request.
Most of the money is needed for the supply of COVID-19 tests and
personal protective equipment, such as face masks, to poorer
nations, the documents seen by Reuters say.
UNEQUAL PLEDGES
Almost all the money requested for vaccine procurement has now been
pledged, but production problems and the unequal distribution of
vaccines have left many poorer countries with very few doses - in
many cases not even enough to vaccinate healthcare workers and the
most vulnerable.
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 The United States, the European
Union and other wealthy nations have made
pledges to donate hundreds of millions of
vaccines that they have already secured, but the
WHO says many more are needed.
COVAX, the vaccine pillar within the ACT-A, has
so far delivered about 100 million doses to a
total of over 130 countries. Its goal is to
distribute 2 billion doses by the end of the
year.
G20 nations have been asked to contribute $27
billion to the funding of ACT-A, of which 51%
has already been pledged, one of the WHO
documents says.
The requests were calculated based on the G20
member states' economic power, but the pledges
vary significantly.
Germany, Canada and Saudi Arabia have already
offered more than they were asked for.
The United States, Britain and Italy have
pledged around two-thirds of what was requested,
but France has so far promised only 25% of what
it was asked for, while China and Russia have
made no financial commitment at all.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio;
additional reporting by Christian Kraemer in
Venice and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome; Editing by
Kevin Liffey)
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