Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment has been made at the Girl Summit 2014 of the role played by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) in safeguarding the health of women and girls, and in addressing gender-related barriers to accessing immunisation services; and what assessment they have made of the cost-effectiveness so far of the United Kingdom’s contribution towards GAVI’s programme, agreed in the Multilateral Aid Review of March 2011.

The focus of Girl Summit 2014 was on ending female genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriage. No specific assessment was made at the Summit on the role of the GAVI Alliance in safeguarding the health of women and girls or addressing gender-related barriers to accessing immunisation services. However, GAVI is rolling-out two vaccines that will directly benefit girls and women: rubella vaccine, which protects against a disease damaging to unborn children; and Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine, which helps prevent cervical cancer, one of the leading causes of death in young women in sub-Saharan Africa. GAVI will immunise over 30 million girls with HPV vaccines during 2013-2020 which will prevent over 150,000 women dying each year. GAVI is working to overcome the barriers to introducing the HPV vaccine in developing countries by reducing the high cost of the vaccine and tackling the challenges of immunising girls aged nine to thirteen years by integrating HPV immunisation with wider health interventions targeted at adolescent girls.

The UK’s support to GAVI remains a highly cost effective way to achieve childhood immunisation results at scale. The 2011 UK Multilateral Aid Review (MAR) ranked GAVI as being very good value for money. The 2013 MAR Update confirmed that GAVI is continuing to make reasonable progress. An example of this is that GAVI helped to secure a reduction in price of 35% between 2010-2012 of the three vaccines it spends the most money on.