DC on BBC1 now addressing the conference.
Talking about little boy in Nairobi who died of Meningitis aged 1 and asking countries at the summit to pledge money.
He's thanked GSK and the Serum Institute for the vaccines themselves (I'll check out their figures in a min) but DC is quoting $2.50 a vax.
Bit poignant him talking about the loss of a child by a parent, as his loss is also quite new.
He is pledging £814 m up to 2014 which is the equivalent of 1.4m lives, or 1 child every 2 mins. £50m is matched funding to incentivise private companies to donate.
DC is pushing the idea of 'Smart funding' which he sees as a 'golden thread' in developing countries with him seeing further investment in infrastructure in Africa , he's emphatically NOT calling it charity but rather labelling it economic opportunity for developing nations.
DC did make ref to spending cuts in UK - why aid if we cant afford it? how can it work with corruption rife in developing world? He did try to address some of these criticisms: He sees the UK contribution as a 'Moral Obligation' of the UK, honouring the 0.7% commitment. He also feels that aid now promotes UK interest by opening trade corridors and is a pre-emptive spend in order to avoid probs in future.
He has answered the objection on the grounds of corruption in developing countries by pledging to change how countries get aid, by opening direct channels, and embedding programmes with measurable results (schooling/vax) he wants to improve transparency, by giving details of DIFID spending, and his new plan is that NGOs must publish details of their spending where a percentage of that aid has come from the UK.
More later, my fingers are flying between twitter and MN!