11.7 million children vaccinated in African countries thanks to the Child Vaccination Alliance

Pneumonia, which is still the leading global cause of infant mortality from infection, causes more than 700,000 deaths each year, mainly in the most disadvantaged areas.

The ”la Caixa” Foundation, together with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, with the support of the Gates Foundation and in collaboration with the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), has been promoting the Alliance for Child Vaccination since 2008, an initiative that has managed to immunise more than 11.7 million children in particularly vulnerable areas of Africa who do not have access to vaccines, mainly against pneumonia.

This has been made possible thanks to contributions from the ”la Caixa” Foundation, donations from nearly 7,000 companies throughout the country as part of their corporate social responsibility, and contributions from supportive citizens.

Through the matching fund formula, all donations received are multiplied by four. Thus, with the formula 1 equals 4, for every euro donated, the ”la Caixa” Foundation adds another euro and the Gates Foundation adds two more euros.

Over the last six years, these funds raised by the ”la Caixa” Foundation have financed 100% of the cost of pneumonia vaccination programmes in Mozambique and 25% in Ethiopia during 2021 and 2022.

Renewed commitment to the fight against child mortality

In 2025, the ”la Caixa” Foundation, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance's leading private partner in Europe, has renewed its commitment to the partnership for the 17th consecutive year to make its annual contribution, which doubles all donations made to this alliance. The initiative receives donations from companies and also extends to CaixaBank customers as a philanthropic initiative in the fight against child mortality.

For its part, the Gates Foundation, which launched the matching fund initiative in 2011, also maintains its commitment to double the sum of all funds contributed to Gavi in 2025, while ISGlobal, which joined this alliance as a strategic partner in 2014, continues to contribute its scientific and academic expertise to the project.

A pioneering alliance

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that brings together developing countries with donors, including governments, the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Gates Foundation and other private sector partners, including the “la Caixa” Foundation.

Since its inception in 2000, its mission has been to save lives, reduce poverty and protect the world against the threat of epidemics and pandemics. To this end, it has helped vaccinate more than 1.2 billion children in 78 countries, preventing 20.6 million premature deaths between 2000 and 2024.

What makes the ”la Caixa” Foundation's Alliance for Child Vaccination unique is the involvement of CaixaBank's customers, both businesses and individuals, in a pioneering corporate social responsibility project in Europe. The Alliance for Childhood Vaccination has the commitment of the CaixaBank Empresas and CaixaBank Private Banking teams, as well as its entire branch network, which are key to the dissemination and success of this initiative.

With this objective in mind, CaixaBank Empresas raises awareness among its customers, offering them the opportunity to contribute to the access and quality of vaccines in developing countries as a social responsibility action that allows them to give back to society part of what they have received from it. For its part, CaixaBank Private Banking promotes support for Gavi within its Social Value Project, which supports and encourages the philanthropic concerns of its customers.