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Abu Dhabi Pledging Drive Secures $1.9 Billion to Accelerate Polio Eradication

The new pledges narrow a years-long shortfall to $440 million, prompting a tighter push on vaccination, surveillance, frontline capacity in the highest-risk areas.

Overview

  • About $1.2 billion of the total is newly committed, cutting the GPEI 2022–2029 resource gap to $440 million but leaving a shortfall after donor retrenchment, including a projected 30% budget reduction in 2026.
  • Largest pledges: Gates Foundation $1.2 billion; Rotary International $450 million; Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity $140 million; Bloomberg Philanthropies $100 million; Germany $62 million; United States $46 million; Pakistan $154 million; Japan $6 million; Luxembourg $3 million.
  • Organizers say the funding supports efforts to reach about 370 million children with polio vaccines each year and to strengthen health systems that deliver other routine immunizations.
  • Pakistan detailed plans for intensified door-to-door immunisation, stronger surveillance, more frontline vaccinators and improved cold-chain logistics, concentrating on high-risk districts and cross-border populations.
  • Wild poliovirus remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while variant outbreaks persist in multiple countries, reinforcing GPEI’s focus on targeted campaigns and sensitive surveillance.