WHO is proud to partner with the UK, the second top donor for the 2018-2019 programme budget donating a total of US$ 404 million (including projections).

 The UK has also given WHO flexible funding, so that WHO can allocate funds when and where they are needed. For the 2018-2019 period the UK generously donated US$ 52.2 million to WHO's Core Voluntary Contribution Account, making the UK the top flexible contributor in 2018/19 and hence a crucial partner in helping WHO finance and implement underfunded priority programs.

The UK is one of the few countries that meets the UN target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid.

The top 10 areas receiving UK contributions for the 2018-2019 biennium: 

• Polio eradication
• Increase surveillance, early warning, outbreak and crisis response
• Increase access to essential health and nutrition
• National health policies, strategies and plans
• Health and the environment
• Neglected tropical diseases
• Malaria
• Reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health
• Access to medicines
• Antimicrobial resistance

The UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Fleming Fund has contributed more than $17 million to WHO to fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Misusing antibiotics in health or in the food chain can lead to the development of drug-resistant microbes. AMR is occurring everywhere in the world, compromising our ability to treat infectious diseases.

With the support of the Fleming Fund, WHO has made substantial progress:

• 129 countries (of which 85 are LMICs) have finalized an AMR national action plan, and 51 are in the process of developing one.
• WHO published the first WHO Report on Surveillance of Antibiotic Consumption that includes data from 65 countries, contributing to our understanding of how antibiotics are used in these countries.
• WHO has trained more than 50 countries on surveillance of antimicrobial consumption.
• WHO developed a global protocol for integrated surveillance of AMR to generate data on the scale of the problem in human, animal, food and environmental sectors. The protocol is being rolled out in seven countries and an additional nine are expected to roll out the protocol in 2019.  
• WHO developed the AWaRe categorization, a new tool that clarifies the preferred antibiotic options for each important infectious disease syndrome, balancing benefits, harms and the potential for resistance.
• WHO developed a Tripartite AMR Country Self-Assessment Survey in collaboration with Tripartite partners, FAO and OIE, to monitor implementation of national action plans on AMR across sectors. WHO, in collaboration with FAO and OIE, also developed the Tripartite Monitoring & Evaluation framework for the Global Action Plan on AMR, along with a recommended list of indicators, to generate data to assess the delivery of GAP objectives and inform decision-making.

Over 900 million people globally do not have access to wheelchairs, eyeglasses, hearing aids, prosthetics and other life-changing assistive products. At the Global Disability Summit, UKaid, UNICEF, WHO and other partners launched a Global Partnership For Assistive Technology - ATscale to enable 500 million people access to assistive technology by 2030.

As part of the ATscale initiative, the Global Disability Innovation Hub started the AT2030 programme with GBP 20 million from UKaid. AT2030 initiative will catalyse new technologies and service delivery models, generate at least 40 new technologies with potential life-changing impact, spark 80 new start-ups and mobilise the private sector to help at least 15 million people access assistive technologies by 2023. In partnership with UNICEF, the Global Disability Innovation Hub and others, WHO is working towards improving access to affordable essential assistive products, especially in Africa – helping to realise the ambitious goal of reaching 500 million people.  

The UK hosts 60 WHO collaborating centres, institutions such as research institutes, universities or academies, which are designated by the Director-General to carry out activities in support of the Organization's programmes. 

Among them are top global institutions that share data and lend their expertise to WHO in areas such as nursing, occupational health, communicable diseases, nutrition, mental health, chronic diseases and health technologies. 

Public Health England (PHE) is a strong partner, with nine collaborating centres, in the areas of global health security, mass gatherings, antimicrobial resistance research, special pathogens, chemical exposures, radiation protection, and nursing and midwifery. 

WHO's Health Emergencies team partners with PHE in areas including capacity building, knowledge transfer, quality assurance for outbreak, simulation exercise management, human resources exchange and emergency trainings.

The goal of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is to complete the eradication and containment of all wild, vaccine-related and Sabin polioviruses, such that no child ever again suffers paralytic poliomyelitis. 

In November 2019 the UK Government confirmed its commitment to eradicating polio by pledging a £400 million contribution for the next four years to help vaccinate more than 400 million children a year. The United Kingdom is the second-largest public-sector contributor with total commitments of US$ 1.6 billion until 2019.    

The UK’s support helped:

• eradicate wild poliovirus type 3 (WPV3) worldwide
• immunise up to 45 million children against the disease each year until 2020 – that is 80 children a minute
• save more than 65,000 children from paralysis every year
• help over 15,000 polio workers reach every last child with life-saving vaccines and other health interventions
• help save almost £2 billion globally by 2035, as health care systems are freed up from treating polio victims

In early 2017, malaria was claiming more lives in Nigeria's Borno State than all other diseases combined. Most of the deaths were among children aged under 5 years. The UK contributed US 9.4 million in the 2016-2017 biennium to help control malaria in key countries that share the highest burden of the disease, including Nigeria.

In collaboration with the Borno State Ministry of Health, WHO launched a special campaign in July 2017 aimed at rapidly reducing the malaria burden among under-5 children in 5 high-transmission areas. The 4-month campaign reached 1.2 million children in the targeted areas with both monthly rounds of antimalarial medicines and the oral polio vaccine.

This integrated campaign - a collaborative effort between the malaria, polio and health emergency teams at WHO headquarters, the WHO Regional Office for Africa and the WHO Nigeria country office - marked the first time that antimalarial medicines had been delivered on a mass scale alongside the polio vaccine in an emergency humanitarian setting.

WHO's High Burden to High Impact response is consistent with the UK focus on making impact in high burden countries; guided by the strategic use of evidence to achieve value for money and enabled by good development practice.

WHO has supported Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal and United Republic of Tanzania to address climate change, water and health, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In Ethiopia, evidence of the interlinkages between these areas was developed and policy coherence strengthened. Climate resilient water safety plans were implemented in 31 water supply systems, covering more than 1 million people.

The success of this project has led to a further grant of US$ 10 million for WHO to scale up work in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Nepal to strengthen surveillance systems and develop early warning systems for cholera and other climate-sensitive diseases, as well as to implement climate-resilient water and sanitation safety plans. This work is based on WHO’s climate-resilient water safety plans, which explain how to take into consideration the broader issues of climate change, regional climate vulnerability assessments, disaster risk reduction and integrated water resources management in a way that is aligned with the systematic framework for managing risk presented in the Water safety plan manual.