By Cyber Era NG Special Correspondent
The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) launched on November 22 the WTO-IMF COVID-19 Vaccine Trade Tracker, a new database aimed at providing greater transparency on the cross-border flow of COVID-19 vaccines. The portal provides data on the trade and supply of vaccines by product, country and arrangement type.
The new platform builds on the work of the WTO Secretariat information notes on COVID-19 and world trade and the IMF Staff Discussion Note – A Proposal to End the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The portal provides an array of data on total vaccine supply to date, exports by producing economy and by supply arrangement type, imports by income group and by continent, supply by manufacturing economy and vaccine type, supply to continents and vaccination status.
The vaccine tracker draws information from the public domain, the COVAX Global Vaccine Market Assessment, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Duke Global Health Innovation Center, Airfinity, Our World in Data, the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank and the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT).
The data contained in the tracker is preliminary and will be subject to revisions in collaboration with countries and areas, suppliers, and immunization, health and financing partners. Updates will be provided every month to reflect latest developments.
Sweden donates SEK 500,000(US$ 55,628.10) to support LDCs’ participation in Ministerial Conference
Sweden is contributing SEK 500,000 (over CHF 53,000) to help the least-developed countries (LDCs) within the WTO membership participate in the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), which will be held at the end of November in Geneva.
The donation is to the LDC Trust Fund, which is set up for each Ministerial Conference, the WTO’s top decision-making body. The contribution will help defray travel expenses (i.e. travel tickets and accommodation) for officials from LDCs wishing to participate in MC12. Multiple WTO members contribute to this fund.
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said: “At MC12, differences can only be bridged through an effective participation of all WTO members. I thank Sweden for ensuring that officials from LDCs can actively negotiate trade-related outcomes that will benefit their people.”
Sweden’s WTO Ambassador, Mikael Anzén, said: “The multilateral trading system has been instrumental in boosting Sweden’s exports and economic growth. We would like to see LDCs reap the benefits of trade in a similar way. Participating in MC12 is a first important step.”
Overall, Sweden has donated almost SEK 20 million (over CHF 2 million) to the various WTO trust funds over nearly 20 years.
