The group of the 20 important economic nations (G 20) is relying on an expansion of corona vaccinations in the world.

At the start of the first working group, which will primarily focus on the further fight against the pandemic, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi addressed the assembled heads of state and government on Saturday afternoon.

The pandemic has separated the group, said Draghi, but after two years we can now look to the future with some optimism.

With successful vaccination campaigns and coordinated actions by governments and central banks, the world economy has been able to recover.

Sofia Dreisbach

Editor in politics.

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Manfred Schäfers

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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But one still needs to be aware of certain collective challenges. "The pandemic is not over," says Draghi. In high-income countries it was possible to vaccinate more than seventy percent at least once. In the poorest, however, it is sometimes only three percent. "These differences are morally unacceptable and will undermine global recovery," said Draghi. Now everything must be done to achieve the goal of a global vaccination rate of 70 percent by mid-2022. For the group photo at the beginning of the summit, Draghi later brought doctors, nurses and paramedics onto the stage.

Even before their meeting, the international goal had been set to vaccinate 70 percent of the population in all countries by the middle of next year.

At the end of the year you want to be at 40 percent.

The problem: While rich countries have already achieved the target quota, some poor countries only achieve a share of just under 4 percent.

New concrete measures on how to achieve the global goal are not expected in the Italian capital.

Global answers required

Immediately before the two-day summit, the finance ministers and health ministers of the G20 discussed what had been achieved and what was necessary. "It is a global crisis that also demands global answers," said Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) afterwards. "It is right that we are trying, on the one hand, to combat the economic consequences of this pandemic and, on the other hand, to create the conditions for an economic upswing." That must be done in a coordinated manner.

At the same time, care must be taken to ensure that as many people as possible in the world are actually vaccinated. “We have many vaccines that are available worldwide. Production has expanded incredibly. ”Nevertheless, it is a reality that there are large parts of the world where vaccination rates have so far been very low. Germany has tried very hard to support international activities. "We are world leaders when it comes to measures to combat pandemics and the procurement of vaccines," said the German finance minister on Friday. But the abstract availability is not enough. You also have to make sure that people are actually vaccinated.

The ministers did not discuss compulsory patents in favor of poor countries, as the SPD politician reported.

The companies that have developed vaccines are very committed to creating new production capacities, he emphasized.

"All promises broken"

Aid organizations are pressing for an action plan.

"To date, all promises of the G20 for global access to vaccines have been broken," said Jörn Kalinski from the development organization Oxfam. Friederike Röder from Global Citizen warned, "We have no more time for declarations of intent." Fiona Uellendahl from World Vision called this A 70 percent target realistic "if the right steps are now decided".

The representatives of the aid organizations are promoting the suspension of patent protection and technology transfer.

"Targets alone will not get us out of the pandemic," said Stephan Exo-Kreischer from One. The organization fears that if nothing changes, it will take ten years for all countries to have sufficient vaccines available. "What is missing is a specific one Plan, ”he said.