11.7 million children vaccinated in African countries thanks to the Child Vaccination Alliance

Pneumonia, which remains the leading cause of child mortality from infection worldwide, results in more than 700,000 deaths every year, mainly in the most disadvantaged regions. World Pneumonia Day is marked on 12 November to raise awareness of its causes and consequences, and to remind us that vaccination is essential to protect children.

Since 2008, the ”la Caixa” Foundation, alongside Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, with the support of the Gates Foundation and in collaboration with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), has been promoting the Child Vaccination Alliance, an initiative that has succeeded in immunising more than 11.7 million children, most of them against pneumonia, in particularly vulnerable areas of Africa with no access to vaccines.

This achievement has been made possible thanks to contributions from the ”la Caixa” Foundation, donations from nearly 7,000 companies across Spain as part of their corporate social responsibility, and the generosity of individual donors. Through the matching fund system, every donation received is multiplied by four. With this 1 = 4 formula, for every euro donated, the ”la Caixa” Foundation adds another euro, and the Gates Foundation contributes two more.

Over the past six years, the funds raised by the ”la Caixa” Foundation have made it possible to cover 100% of the cost of pneumonia vaccination programmes in Mozambique and 25% of the cost in Ethiopia during 2021 and 2022.

Renewed commitment in the fight against child mortality

In 2025, the ”la Caixa” Foundation, the leading private partner of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance in Europe, has renewed its commitment to the partnership for the 17th consecutive year by making its annual contribution, which matches all donations made to the alliance. The initiative receives donations from companies and is also offered to CaixaBank customers as a philanthropic initiative in the fight against child mortality.

For its part, the Gates Foundation, which launched the matching fund initiative in 2011, is also maintaining its commitment to double the total amount of funds contributed to Gavi in 2025. Meanwhile, ISGlobal, which joined the alliance as a strategic partner in 2014, continues to contribute its scientific and academic expertise to the project.

A pioneering alliance

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is a public–private partnership that brings together developing countries and donors, including governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Gates Foundation, and other private-sector partners such as the ”la Caixa” Foundation.

Since its inception in 2000, its mission has been to save lives, reduce poverty and protect the world from the threat of epidemics and pandemics. To achieve this, it has helped to vaccinate more than 1.2 billion children in 78 countries, thereby preventing 20.6 million premature deaths between 2000 and 2024.

What makes the ”la Caixa” Foundation’s Child Vaccination Alliance distinctive is the involvement of CaixaBank clients, both companies and individuals, in a corporate social responsibility initiative which is pioneering in Europe. The Child Vaccination Alliance benefits from the commitment of the CaixaBank Business Banking and CaixaBank Private Banking teams, as well as from its entire branch network, all of which are key to the dissemination and success of the initiative.

To this end, CaixaBank Business Banking raises awareness among its clients, offering them the opportunity to contribute to improving access to and the quality of vaccines in developing countries as a corporate social responsibility action that enables them to give back to society some of what they have received from it. Meanwhile, CaixaBank Private Banking promotes support for Gavi within the framework of its Social Value Project, which supports and encourages the philanthropic interests of its clients.