1. Vice Minister of Foreign Minister Choi Jongmoon participated in the USAID Development Ministerial on COVID-19 hosted by Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power on December 6. He emphasized the significance of providing more vaccines to developing countries and supporting their capacity building efforts through cooperation with regional organizations.

o The virtual meeting was a follow-up meeting of the Global COVID-19 Summit hosted by U.S. President Biden in September and the COVID-19 Ministerial hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Blinken. Representatives from more than 20 governments and regional organizations including the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Global Fund and the World Bank attended the meeting.

2. Vice Minister Choi mentioned that the emergence of Omicron variant is a wake-up call on the need to address global vaccine inequality, and the international community should work together to ensure the global health system effectively mobilizes and coordinates resources and tools to bring an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. In addition, Vice Minister Choi pointed out that the international community needs to provide greater targeted support to regional organizations, and explained that the Korean government has been working with regional organizations such as the African Union (AU) and ASEAN to improve vaccine roll-out and uptake.

o He also introduced that the Republic of Korea, together with neighboring countries, launched the “Northeast Asia Cooperation for Health Security (NEACHS) last year to strengthen regional health capacities.

4. Vice Minister Choi announced, in particular, that Korea will provide vaccines to the African region in partnership with the AU, UNICEF, and COVAX in addition to its previous pledge of 210 million USD contribution to COVAX AMC.

5. The participants shared the view that international coordination should be strengthened to increase vaccine uptakes as well as to expand vaccine production.