Countries to include donations of vaccine doses as foreign aid

Last week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee issued a statement, which says that countries will be able to count donations of unwanted vaccine doses as part of their foreign aid commitment.

Oxfam Aotearoa commented that:

“This guidance is a double insult to the world’s poorest countries. First, rich countries bought many more doses than they could use at a time of limited supply, preventing millions of people in developing countries from getting life-saving vaccines. Now they are free to charge any donations of unwanted doses to their aid budgets, to the detriment of other essential aid spending.”