From the op-ed:
More than a year ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other global health organizations launched the COVAX initiative, part of its broader Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) programme to provide testing, treatment and vaccines to rich and poor countries alike. But COVAX and ACT-A are receptacles for donor money, not sources of finance. This month, ACT-A announced that it still needs $21 billion.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has seemed reluctant to release money for vaccines. For months, it imposed hurdles beyond the standards of any single stringent regulatory authority or the WHO prequalification system for health products. The procurement process for the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, for instance, was not eligible for World Bank support until nearly two months after the United Kingdom had begun rolling out the vaccine in January, wasting precious time. (The bank relaxed its requirements after a review in April.)
These failures squander the fruits of research. The enormous contributions that science can make to public health, poverty reduction and development come largely in the form of public goods. These are ideas and technologies that have big global benefits, but which any single country — especially poor ones — might be reluctant to pay for alone. The COVID-19 pandemic is revealing the World Bank’s inability, or unwillingness, to invest in these goods.
