Pope Benedict XVI was the official first buyer of a multi-government bond supporting a campaign to immunise 500 million children in the world's poorest countries.

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, picked up the pope's $1,000 bond during a Nov 7 ceremony in London.

Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, U2 singer Bono, singer-relief concert organizer Bob Geldof and leaders of Britain's Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities also participated in the ceremony and purchased bonds from the International Finance Facility for Immunization.

The finance facility is an international development funding project supported by the governments of Great Britain, France, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain, South Africa and Brazil and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gordon Brown, the British chancellor of the exchequer, who came up with the idea of selling bonds backed by governments to raise money quickly for development projects, presided over the Nov 7 ceremony.

Speaking at the ceremony, Cardinal Martino said the pope “is pleased to help light the way for others who might also wish to join him in empowering those living in poverty to take an active role in providing themselves and their family the opportunity to build a better life.”

“It is the hope of Pope Benedict that the participation by the Church in this programme will help to inspire others to take the step toward concrete action,” he said.

In too many of the world's least-developed countries, Cardinal Martino said, efforts to alleviate poverty have been frustrated by “the impact of malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.”

Hilary Benn, the British secretary for international development, said, “Every year up to 3 million children die from diseases that could be prevented by vaccines that are available now or could be in the near future.”

The launch of the bonds, Benn said, will ensure that the GAVI Alliance -- formerly called the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization -- will have “long-term, predictable funding” to immunise children and improve health care in the world's poorest countries and promote the development of new vaccines.

The bonds project hopes to raise $4 billion over the next 10 years to fund a massive vaccination campaign; the eight sponsoring countries have pledged enough money over the next 20 years to redeem the bonds with interest.

Jean Pierre Le Calvez, a GAVI Alliance spokesman, told Catholic News Service that Pope Benedict's decision to buy the first bond had “great symbolic value.”

Even with just $1,000, he said, "you can immunize 30 children."
In the world's poorest countries, the alliance focusses on first immunising children against polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and measles. The alliance also is working to spread the availability and use of “underused vaccines” for diseases, including hepatitis B and yellow fever.

The alliance has estimated that its current funding levels, without the money from the bonds, will help prevent the deaths of 1.5 million children between 2006 and 2015; the bond funding will help prevent an additional 5 million child deaths from diseases that can be prevented by immunization.

Before the bonds went on sale, the largest donors to the alliance were the Gates foundation and the US government.

Chris Bain, director of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, the British Catholic aid agency, attended the bond launch.

“Diseases such as polio, measles and diphtheria kill and blight the lives of millions of children in poor countries, and this should not and need not be the case,” Bain said. “The launch of the IFF takes us a step closer to providing funding to eradicate these diseases and give children a better chance of survival.”

The bonds have been given the top “AAA” ratings by the world's major rating agencies.
CNS