evidence: Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus : WHO plays a critical role to deliver on the Alliance’s mission to save lives and protect health by increasing equitable and sustainable use of vaccines. The Gavi strategy is based on Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030), the decade-long vision and goals for immunization that every country endorsed at the World Health Assembly in 2020. Across each of Gavi’s strategic goals, WHO contributes leadership and technical expertise at the global, regional and country levels. WHO is the lead technical agency in the Alliance. [...] Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus : Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history. According to the recent WHO-led study published in the Lancet, we found that in the past 50 years immunization was the single greatest contribution of any health intervention to ensuring babies not only see their first birthdays but continue leading healthy lives into adulthood. Thanks to vaccines, smallpox has been eradicated, polio is on the brink, and many once-feared diseases can now be easily prevented, including measles, cervical cancer, yellow fever, pneumonia and diarrhoea. And, with the recent development of vaccines against diseases like malaria, we expect millions more lives to be saved in the future. [...] Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus : In the first five years of the SDG era, we saw improvements in life-expectancy and maternal, adolescent and child health, but the pandemic stalled or rolled back much of this progress. In immunization, disrupted health services during the pandemic meant an estimated 49 million children never received a single vaccine dose, resulting in outbreaks of preventable diseases, such as measles.