The USGLC applauds the commitment from the incoming Biden-Harris Administration to scale up the U.S. international response to the global pandemic. Citing the urgency for a “global response,” the new proposal calls for the U.S. to support the “international health and humanitarian response” and to “mitigate the pandemic’s devastating impact on global health, food security, and gender-based violence.”

As the incoming administration moves this proposal forward, it will meet a Congress with hundreds of lawmakers from both chambers and both sides of the aisle who agree that failing to invest in a global response comes at our own peril. Members of Congress on a bipartisan basis have consistently called in recent months for a “robust, coordinated, and sufficiently resourced international response” to COVID-19.

As dangerous new COVID strains reach our shores and the World Bank warns of further economic risk and uncertainty, the need for $20 billion in total emergency resources for the global response to COVID-19 could not be more pressing to protect our own domestic health and economic security. We welcome tonight’s new commitment and look forward to urgently working with the incoming Administration and the 117th Congress to ensure the resources for and implementation of this proposal.