The UK government helps 3 million people lift themselves out of poverty each year. In the last ten years, the collective global effort to which we have contributed has helped 400 million people lift themselves from poverty. This has seen millions of children schooled, millions of people given access to water, sanitation and medicines, and thousands of health professionals trained.
Below are some of the key recent achievements of UKaid from the Department for International Development.
Fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria
In recent years UKaid has:
- made life-saving anti-retroviral treatment (ARV) available to almost 100,000 people
- distributed half a billion condoms
- delivered 7 million anti-malaria bed nets
- provided TB treatment to 134,000 people.
Our support for funds such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria (GFATM) and the drug purchasing facility UNITAID has helped to put more than 75.6 million people in the world's poorest countries on treatments for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria. We are providing up to £1 billion of support to GFATM up to 2015.
Funding for children
UKaid to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has helped to:
- provide nutrition for 80,000 acutely undernourished children
- provide vaccines to 40% of the world’s children, including polio vaccinations for 1.6 million under-5s in Somalia
- provide school places for 10 million children in 2006 alone.
We provide over £100 million to UNICEF every year and are also providing an extra £100 million over five years to the United Nations Population Fund to improve reproductive health.
Funding on global health
Our continued support for the International Health Partnership (IHP) will help build and improve access to national health systems in some of the world’s poorest countries. This will deliver the doctors, drugs and clinics that are needed to save millions of lives.
In Nepal, the IHP has been instrumental in bringing about the abolition of user fees, making healthcare available to all.
We are spending £6 billion on health systems and services between 2008 and 2015.
Fighting crime
The UK government works both in the UK and overseas to help to eradicate corruption and money laundering related to developing countries.
Support for anti-corruption police units in the UK has seen the return of £20 million of assets acquired through money laundering. These units have also frozen £79 million in UK bank accounts.
In Uganda, UKaid has helped to save £12 million by cleaning up public sector corruption.
Aid to Africa
In recent years UKaid to Africa has:
- provided better access to water, sanitation, food and healthcare to 1.5 million people in Zimbabwe
- updated 600 classrooms, distributed 750,000 school kits and helped reduce fees for around 8 million pupils in Democratic Republic of the Congo
- increased access to farming inputs such as seed and fertiliser for 60% of all households in Malawi.
The UK is the largest provider of support to the African Development Fund (AfDF). Between 2004 and 2007, UKaid helped provide:
- 1.5 million people with transport
- 285,000 people with health services
- 81,000 with water and sanitation services
- 1.2 million trees, seedlings and other plants to almost 475,000 farmers
- primary education to 237,000 pupils.
Between 2008 and 2010 we are contributing £417 million to the AfDF and by 2010 will be providing over £3 billion of support to Africa as a whole.
Help to people in Asian countries
In Pakistan, our 2008 support for a government welfare programme helped 1.9 million families receive income support payments, safeguarding them against poverty and hunger. Also in 2008, UKaid provided 400,000 people with financial services, including small loans to help them start up businesses.
In India, our support for the government’s universal education programme has helped bring more than 20 million more children into school since 2003. The programme has also established 250,000 new schools.
UK government support for the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund has helped to increase the number of Afghan children in school to 6.7 million, from 1 million in 2001. In 2008/09, £60 million of support was provided to the Fund.
Peacebuilding and humanitarian responses
In 2008/09 we provided emergency aid in countries including Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Burma, Gaza, Pakistan and in the Horn of Africa, working through the International Committee of the Red Cross, UN agencies and other non-governmental organisations.
The UK is the largest contributor to the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). The CERF provided vital assistance in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, enabling the World Food Programme to feed 750,000 people for three months. In Sudan, its nutrition programme has benefited over 1 million people. The CERF has provided more than $1 billion of support to over 67 countries since 2006.
We are also making greater use of pooled funds at country level. In 2008, support to such funds in the Democratic Republic of the Congo helped to meet urgent needs for food and shelter for people threatened by conflict. We provided almost £145 million to these funds in 2008, which also helped to meet needs in Sudan and the Central African Republic.
