Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and Third World Network (TWN) are facilitating the Feminists for a People’s Vaccine Campaign (FPV) for equitable, accessible, and affordable COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, therapeutics, and equipment—Access to Medicines or A2M for short.

The FPV Campaign brings the unique perspective of feminists from the Global South and our partners and allies in the North to challenge the causes and consequences of extreme inequalities in access to medicines. Geography, wealth, income, gender, race, caste, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors shape who has access and who has not, who will live and who will die.

We analyse and question the rapidly changing pandemic panorama and shed light on key players. We look closely at initiatives such as the waiver proposal on implementing the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO), the COVAX Facility and the South versus North imbalance in global trade, investment and financing.

The Campaign includes global, regional, and national groups from across Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA, Latin America, the Caribbean, East, South-East, and South Asia, the Pacific and other allies. Two meetings, one held in March, another in May 2021, created synergies through discussions and explored future collaborations. We established Working Groups in this process to focus on 1) Global Analysis & Campaign; 2) Regional analysis, campaign and networking; 3) Communications.

The FPV campaign builds knowledge through analysis and action. An evolving set of resources combines feminist analysis with salient information on the latest developments on key issues such as the TRIPS Waiver proposal led by India and South Africa at the WTO, Issue Papers, Podcasts and ‘DAWNTalks’ an online discussion series among others. They are designed to provide information and analysis to better understand the complex politics and processes at work, and trigger engagement and deeper discussions on the way forward to more equitable access to medicines worldwide.

The Feminists for a People’s Vaccine (FPV) is encouraging feminist groups and organizations across the globe to volunteer for Working Groups and engage globally and/or regionally/nationally to expand the scope and depth of the campaign.