The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) yesterday announced that it will increase its funding for childhood immunization by pledging an additional €14 million to the GAVI Alliance – bringing Germany’s total contribution to €20 million in 2011. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will match Germany’s increase.

This is part of a wider agreement between the German government and the Gates Foundation to cooperate closely in global health policy, agriculture and rural development, water and sanitation, and urban development and microfinance. Gates has also said it will match any further increase in funds for GAVI for 2012 and 2013 should Germany announce these contributions ahead of the June GAVI Pledging Conference, of which the aim is to close GAVI’s US $3.7 billion funding gap for scaling up immunization programmes between 2011 and 2015.