Address of prime minister Mark Rutte to the Coronavirus Global Response International Pledging Conference

On behalf of the Netherlands, I would like to thank President Von der Leyen and her co-hosts for taking the initiative to establish a global coalition to aid the global community in the fight against COVID-19.

The present situation calls for unusual forms of multidisciplinary and international cooperation, and for solidarity. Because we can only fight this crisis by working together and sharing our knowledge.

So we are very happy with the actions the WHO and the EU have taken so far to coordinate research and innovation efforts on COVID-19. A lot of work has been done already, but unfortunately we are not there yet.

The Netherlands would therefore like to announce that it will be contributing 192 million euros to global cooperative efforts to develop and implement new tools in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • We are contributing 50 million euros for the rapid development of a vaccine through the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations
  • 42 million euros for dedicated COVID-19 medical research and development programmes
  • 50 million euros for prevention and humanitarian aid
  • 40 million euros for economic stability via IMF and UN mechanisms, and
  • 10 million euros for additional support to the Global Financing Facility, to be used to aid low-income countries in fighting this pandemic.

The Netherlands is also a longstanding partner of GAVI. We will carefully consider our future contribution and we look forward to the Gavi’s third donor pledging conference, hosted by the UK government, on 4 June.

Thank you and stay well.