Your Excellency Dr. Singh, Prime Minister of India, Ministers, Excellencies, Bill and Melinda Gates, Distinguished participants,

I am very pleased and deeply honoured to be present at this Partner’s meeting of the global vaccine alliance. I am sure I speak for all of us in saying how grateful we are to the government of India for generously hosting our meeting.

India – this the world’s largest democracy, - is perhaps the single country which stands to gain the most from child immunization. So it is altogether fitting that we meet here, where so much of our success will be measured.

We live in a time of rapid and profound global change.

And we who are gathered here have an unprecedented opportunity to change the course of humanity.

The opportunity has been given to us by medical achievement, economic growth and cooperation between countries and sectors.

The opportunity has been taken by visionary individuals who believe that change is possible – and who say why not!

And so far, this great endeavour has saved more than one million lives.

I am happy to be at the helm of a government which enjoys widespread support at home for our development aid policy. This Government is committed to a wide range of development issues. Let me briefly state the following:

Since the early nineties, we have given almost 1 per cent of our gross national income as development assistance.

By almost, I mean perhaps 0.94, 0.93 – sometimes a little less depending on our overall economic performance

We are now determined to pass the one per-cent mark.

Based on solid funds and consistent policy we will increasingly channel aid to partners, agencies, and alliances that can document results.

Our common hopes and aspirations have been articulated in the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations. They represent our common yardstick by which human progress is measured.

Children are a main concern. They are the future.

It is unnecessary and unacceptable that a child dies every third second,

- that more than 26 000 children die every day,

- and that more than 10 million children die every year.

One forth of these children can be saved by vaccines available today or in the very near future.

If this is possible

– if this is affordable

– how can we justify not doing it?

The answer is clear and simple – we cannot justify not saving the lives of millions of little children.

Five years ago, in 2000, I had the privilege of welcoming the Board of the vaccine alliance to Oslo.

The global alliance introduced a new way of doing business.

We wanted Norway to be a partner in this innovation. This led to the first public announcement of a significant Norwegian contribution to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. Five years ago.

It was then, as a father, that I was sensitized to the injustice that all Norwegian infants are immunized, whereas in parts of Asia and Africa only one in five received this magic shot.

As an economist, I could appreciate that immunization is the most cost-effective means of preventing disease and child mortality and that vaccine programmes are key to economic growth in poor countries.

As a politician I have the privilege to do something about it.

I am pleased to announce today that we have the ambition to take a leading role in making Millennium Development Goal number four a reality.

This development goal says that child mortality should be reduced by two-thirds by the year 2015.

I want to see this achieved.

And I am going to work hard to help make this goal come true.

Norway contributed 30 million US dollars to the vaccine Alliance each year from 2001 to 2003.

This was increased in 2004 to 45 million US dollars.

Today I can announce that the Norwegian Government has decided to increase its annual contribution to 75 million US dollars as of next year

– and it is our firm intention to keep up annual contributions at this level through to the year 2015.

In total, Norway will contribute one billion dollars through 2015.

I will also announce today that Norway has decided to support the new International Finance Facility for Immunization. Our financial support will be at the same level as the Swedish support.

The concept of the International Finance Facility has been developed mainly by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gordon Brown.

He is as committed as I am to achieving results.

Today, I have seen children seriously ill and dying from brain and lung infections that we very soon will have vaccines against. We must ensure that these vaccines are introduced as soon as possible, so that we are able to save millions of children from dying unnecessarily in the future.

All of us in this room know what it takes to get to the point where a skilled health worker can provide that life saving injection – not only today and tomorrow – but in the years to come:

It takes money.

It takes infrastructure.

It takes trained people.

And it takes leadership -

the vision and leadership that all of you present here tonight, Prime Ministers, Ministers of Health, Heads of Agencies, and Business Leaders bring to this life saving Alliance.

There is a towering figure among business leaders

Bill Gates has already set his fingerprint on world change.

Together with his wife he is about to do it again

- by generously supporting the vaccine alliance through their Foundation.

If we succeed in working effectively together, we can proudly tell the citizens of the world, 10 years from now, that we changed history.

That we saved millions of little children.

That more countries have healthier and better educated people.

That more countries have healthier and stronger economies.

That more countries became safer and more equitable societies.

And truly, nothing offers more hope for the future than the look in the eye of a healthy child ready for life.