The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced its support for the Pandemic Fund, with an amount of $50 million. This announcement was made during the speech of Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which he delivered on behalf of His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, during the G20 summit. This initiative comes within the outputs of the Kingdom's presidency of the G20 in 2020, as the leaders at the time praised the initiative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's presidency to start discussing solutions to address the gaps in global pandemic preparedness and response measures, including the Kingdom's proposal to launch the initiative to access pandemic control tools. In their closing statement, the leaders of the G20 countries welcomed the establishment of the Financial Intermediary Fund for Health Security, noting the Kingdom's role in developing the initial idea during its presidency of the G20 in 2020. The fund aims to provide financing to low and middle income countries and regions to enhance their ability to prevent future pandemics, as well as their ability to prepare for and respond to them at the national, regional and global levels. The fund will fund laboratory systems, disease surveillance, emergency communications and management, community engagement and the health workforce. The support provided by the Kingdom, in addition to the support provided by countries, institutions and international non-profit organizations, totaling $1.4 billion, will contribute to enhancing efforts at the regional and global levels to share epidemiological data, coordinate procurement of medical and non-medical countermeasures, and harmonize regulatory measures.
