After a 12 month postponement, the European Championship 2020 tournament finally kicked off, with Europe’s leading football (or soccer) talent competing from 11 June – 11 July. Throughout the football tournament, we’ll be offering our own analysis, but instead of scoring countries on their skills on the pitch, we‘ll be focusing on their performance as leaders in the fight to end global poverty.
Group Stage: Round 1 – Global access to COVID-19 vaccines
The group stage of Euro 2020 (starting 11 June) coincided with the start of the 2021 G7 Leaders Summit. World leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US will meet in Cornwall, England, for the first time since the pandemic began to discuss plans for tackling the world’s biggest crises.
G7 countries have purchased over a third of the world‘s vaccine supply, despite making up only 13% of the global population. This means they hold the keys to ending this pandemic.
As the G7 kicked off, ONE called for urgent action from the G7 to get safe and effective vaccines to everyone, everywhere. Whilst there were plenty of goal-scoring opportunities, G7 leaders failed to work together and make progress to end the pandemic. For example;
⚽ Rich countries have been able to make payments to pre-order enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations — almost three times over — leaving little or none for poorer countries.
⚽ Pharmaceutical companies are not openly sharing their knowledge, tech, or data to help scale up the global production of COVID-19 vaccines.
⚽ The global initiative aimed at helping poorer countries access COVID-19 vaccines and treatments isn’t getting the funding it needs from government leaders.
If G7 leaders continue to play defence and fail to work as a team, we‘re never going to win in the global fight against COVID-19. . Sign our petition telling governments to urgently share their surplus doses as soon as possible with the countries being left behind.
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Group stage: Round 2 – Global access to education
Whilst England (the G7 hosts) may have got off to a winning start at the Euros, unfortunately, the commitments made by the G7 leaders over the opening weekend weren‘t as promising. Not only did G7 leaders miss an open goal when it came to equal vaccine distribution, they also failed to secure a win against global education needs.
As UK Director Romilly Greenhill summarised “Post-match analysis of the G7 summit shows an underwhelming performance… We need faster and more ambitious dose sharing, new funding to tackle the pandemic, and new money for education ahead of the GPE Summit in July.”
Ahead of the July fundraising conference for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) — a fund designed to help keep children learning in low-income countries — we‘re focused on looking ahead to see who stepped up as team captain and lead a commitment to:
⚽ A future in which every 10-year-old everywhere can acquire the literacy skills they need to thrive
⚽ Protect and expand education budgets
⚽ Fully fund GPE so that the most vulnerable children are not left behind
Sign ONE‘s petition and tell governments to invest in every child‘s future now
Group stage: Round 3 – COVID-19 vaccine dose sharing
As European Council leaders met on 23-24 June, EU(RO) leaders had a chance to show the world their skills – both on and off the pitch. If they agreed to urgently share all of their excess vaccine doses with countries in need, we all had a chance of winning against the virus. Where the G7 lost, team Europe had to lift the trophy for vaccine equity. 🇪🇺🏆
After vaccinating its entire population, the EU will still have 690 million excess vaccine doses. By the end of this summer, we will start seeing unused doses pile up. We can’t wait till then and risk these vaccines going to waste. We need the EU to deliver them urgently for frontline workers and to those most at risk who are still left unprotected around the world.
Take action now by liking and sharing our tweet calling on key EU leaders to step up at the meeting:
Together with @GlblCtzn, we‘re calling on #TeamEurope to step up and deliver where the #G7 failed. At #EUCO please agree to:
💉share all excess doses ASAP
💰 fully finance ACT-A
📒 share knowledge and know-how
🔎increase transparency @Statsmin @antoniocostapm @sanchezcastejon pic.twitter.com/yKxAMVF0Hd— ONEinEU (@ONEinEU) June 22, 2021
Final 16: Round 4 – Leader scorecards
As the Euros moved from the group to the tournament‘s knockout stage, it was time to look at the key Euro players we wanted to see a strong performance from. But without a winning first-half performance, the world leaders’ position in the #Eurofantasy squad was looking unlikely…
Check out who made it into the ONE at the Euro‘s tournament favourites list here.
Semi-Finals and Final: Round 5 – Global economic response
We’re at the business end of the tournament- which also coincides with the G20 Finance Ministers meeting. We need to remind them to work as a team and deliver a bold global economic response plan, which leaves no person or country behind. They’ve made big promises recently, but their current plan to provide new funding for pandemic recovery could actually favour wealthier countries over those with more need.
Sign our open letter to tell G20 leaders to help protect the most vulnerable economies.
Thank you to everyone who has taken part in getting behind our asks, supported our petitions, and made some noise on your social channels. You’re the best fans that any team could ask for!
