February 23, 2021 11:03 AM

Institutional investors mobilize for equitable global COVID-19 response

Bloomberg

Institutional investors launched an initiative Tuesday aimed at ensuring equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines and other tools.

So far, 148 asset managers and owners with a collective $14 trillion in assets have signed on to a global investor statement in support of an effective, fair and equitable global response to COVID-19.

The investor statement calls on world leaders to finance the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, or ACT Acclerator, to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 tools.

Investors also pledge to work directly with the health-care companies in which they invest, urging them to pick up the pace of responding to the pandemic, including cross-industry partnerships for research and development, pricing and licensing agreements.

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The statement cites two studies commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the International Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation that show that while advanced economies can vaccinate all their citizens, failing to stop the spread of COVID-19 in emerging markets is a threat to the global economy. The economic benefits of equitable vaccination would be as much as $153 billion, according to the Gates Foundation analysis.

The initiative's ambition is to achieve for COVID-19 and pandemic preparedness what investors have done for the agreements on climate change, said organizer Damiano de Felice, director of strategy for the Access to Medicine Foundation, in an email.

Asset managers signing the statement include Aegon Asset Management, AllianceBernstein, Aviva Investors, AXA Investment Managers, Columbia Threadneedle, EOS at Federated Hermes, Insight Investment, Nomura Asset Management, Schroders and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management. Asset owners include the $30.7 billion San Francisco City & County Employees' Retirement System; Wespath Benefits and Investments, an agency of the United Methodist Church, Glenview, Ill., with more than $24 billion in assets; and Finland's Church Pension Fund, Helsinki.