The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Government of Belgium have signed a new €8 million agreement to expand global equitable access to essential health products and technologies, WHO announced. The four-year partnership will strengthen sustainable manufacturing capacity in low- and middle-income countries—a key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed the world’s reliance on a few production hubs for life-saving medical supplies.
The new funding, running from December 2025 to November 2029, will help countries develop and produce the vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and medical tools they need locally. It focuses on two main priorities: reinforcing existing production systems to ensure rapid delivery of essential health products, and supporting regional manufacturing ecosystems that can develop innovative solutions to meet ongoing public health challenges.
“Equitable access to medicines and health products is a foundation for both universal health coverage and health security,” said Dr. Yukiko Nakatani, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Systems, Access and Data. “Belgium’s renewed financial support will enable geographically diversified and sustainable manufacturing where it is needed most, helping build a safer, fairer, and more resilient global health ecosystem.”
The funding will back two WHO flagship initiatives. The mRNA Technology Transfer Programme (Phase 2.0) aims to help manufacturing partners in low- and middle-income countries become fully independent producers of mRNA-based vaccines and therapeutics by 2030, including for diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, and cancer. The second initiative, WHO’s Health Technology Access Programme (HTAP), works to secure rights and enable global technology transfer—expanding beyond diagnostics and mRNA to other priority technologies. HTAP builds on the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, an effort Belgium helped champion early in the pandemic, by embedding technology transfer into long-term health systems.
Belgium’s support will also strengthen WHO’s work on improving regulatory systems, assessing manufacturing capacity at the country level, setting global norms and standards, driving fair pricing, and ensuring transparency across medical supply chains. These efforts align with WHO’s Access Roadmap 2025–2030 and the organization’s 14th General Programme of Work.
The partnership also reinforces Belgium’s role in broader international efforts such as the European Union’s Global Gateway and the Team Europe Initiative on Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines and Health Technologies. Belgium remains one of WHO’s strongest and most consistent partners, providing stable long-term support for equitable access to health products and stronger health systems worldwide.
