Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps his Department is taking to support the delivery of health improvements in Africa.

The UK is a leading global health actor, supporting improved health outcomes across Africa. We work in partnership with African states, civil society and multilaterals to end preventable deaths of mothers, new-born babies and children by 2030.

Averting preventable deaths and supporting Universal Health Coverage is the overarching goal of all UK health investments. Our priorities include: strengthening health systems; tackling specific health challenges (such as malnutrition, polio and neglected tropical diseases); leading efforts towards the manifesto commitment of ending the malaria epidemic; and supporting global health security.

The UK is the world’s second largest bilateral donor on family planning - the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health programme alone works to prevent 24,000 maternal deaths, including in 24 African countries; the UK is also the second largest government funder of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In 2018 the Global Fund, which disbursed 72% of its funding in sub-Saharan Africa, helped provide 18.9 million people with antiretroviral therapy for HIV; test and treat 5.3 million people for TB; and distribute 131 million mosquito nets to protect families from malaria. Our £1.44 billion support to Gavi (2016-2020) will vaccinate an additional 76 million children and save 1.4 million lives in 68 of the world’s poorest countries.