There are many challenges being faced by the world today, which no longer an issue that concerns only one country or another, given the state of strong overlap between interests of nations and strength of communication that exists in light of globalization.
They include COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, extreme poverty, inequality and importance of implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) among others. They all need cooperation of the entire world and collective effort from all nations at all levels.
As the UN represents a suitable platform for countries it also creates an environment that takes the world to a better position to offer proper policy guidance on how to respond to these challenges, including recovering from the pandemic while making progress on SDGs implementation.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating and multifaceted impacts on humanity and the nature of the pandemic convinced the policy-makers to work together to defeat the virus.
Based on this fact, the State of Qatar was one of the first countries that called from the beginning for working together as one to defeat the pandemic and to help poor countries to get rid of this viral outbreak. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Qatar has provided support to countries that face lack of resources at the bilateral level and through international organizations to contribute to the provision of vaccines and medical supplies to these nations.
The recent participation of the State of Qatar in the high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to support equitable access to vaccines is not and will not be the last in this regard. Also based on the successful experience of its vaccination program where more than 87% of the population has received at least two doses of the vaccine, and work is continuing to give more booster doses, Qatar is continuously pressing towards the joint action and cooperation.
Minister of Public Health H E Dr. Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari stressed during the meeting the importance of equitable access to effective and affordable vaccines to contain the current crisis and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. She added that there is faith in the possibility of addressing these challenges if countries mobilise the necessary political will in a spirit of cooperation and multilateral international action.
Qatar provided $10m to support the COVAX facility as a contribution to the purchase of 1.3 billion doses of safe and effective vaccines to ensure vaccines in 92 low-income countries, along its agreement with WHO to support the Thirteenth General Program of Work (GPW 13).
