Luxembourg is one the founding members of the Universal Health Coverage Partnership. This innovative partnership supports 115 countries in fostering policy dialogue for strategic planning and health systems governance, developing health financing strategies and supporting their implementation, and enabling effective development cooperation in countries. The achievement of Universal Health Coverage is the overarching goal of Luxembourg’s health strategy. Through the Partnership, Luxembourg directly supports six of its partner countries:

• Burkina Faso 
• Cabo Verde
• Lao People's Democratic Republic
• Mali
• Niger
• Senegal 

The health sector policy dialogue strengthening program is entering its third phase in Cabo Verde, which will cover the period 2019-2021. After two phases marked by significant achievements for the country, the next phase focuses on inclusive political dialogue that aims to provide better access to essential health services, better financial protection and greater equity in the health system.

Results from the programme include the completion of crucial work such as the National Health Development Plan, the Regional Health Development Plans, the Strategic Training Plan in Family and Community Medicine, the revision of the basic law health sector, and the revision of the National Essential Medicines List. Read more

The WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) works with countries and partners to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from all hazards that create health emergencies, including disasters (natural or human-made), disease outbreaks and conflicts.

In 2017, Luxembourg provided €500,000 in fully flexible funding to support health emergencies. This was the first tranche of a €1.5 million, 3-year commitment.

This funding has built core capacity to detect disease outbreaks; develop standards to manage high-threat pathogens; respond to health emergencies in crisis countries; and build the capacity in countries to prepare for health emergencies. 

For 2018-2019, as part of their 3-year commitment, Luxembourg has contributed €1 million to support WHO's Contingency Fund for Emergencies. The Contingency Fund for Emergencies (CFE) allows WHO to respond immediately to disease outbreaks and humanitarian crises. The ability to respond quickly, in as little as 24 hours, can stop a health emergency from spiraling out of control. Luxembourg disbursed €500,000 to the CFE in 2018 and is committed to providing an additional €500,000 in 2019.

WHO works with the Luxembourg Institute of Health’s Clinical and Applied Virology, Infectious Diseases Research Unit as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Measles Infections. It is one of the three WHO regional reference laboratories for measles and rubella in the WHO European Region.

The Luxembourg Institute of Health provides expertise, knowledge sharing and support to national measles and rubella labs in 22 countries in the region, in detecting and characterizing circulating measles and rubella viruses.

Thanks to collaboration with the WHO Measles and Rubella Laboratory Network, Luxembourg enhances disease surveillance capacity and monitoring the efforts toward measles and rubella elimination.

There are nearly 1.2 billion adolescents (10- 19 years old) worldwide. In some countries, adolescents make up as much as a quarter of the population.  While the majority of adolescent health issues are preventable or treatable, adolescents face multiple barriers in accessing health care and information. WHO is working to support Member States to create transformative outcomes for the world 1.2 billion adolescents and generations to come, through committing to urgently scale up efforts to respond to the needs of adolescents in service delivery, financing and governance. A new report "Adolescent Health The Missing Population in Universal Health Coverage," by WHO and partners outlines how policymakers can take action in the areas of service delivery, financing and governance.

Polio Eradication - PM of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel commits to Global Health at the 2016 Global Citizens Festival

Luxembourg is a long-term supporter and the second-largest per capita donor to polio eradication. Its total contribution to the programme is US$20 million. The goal of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is to complete the eradication and containment of polio viruses, so that no child ever again suffers paralytic poliomyelitis.

At the Global Citizen Festival in 2016, Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, voiced his commitment to eradicate polio. Luxembourg pledged to give €500,000 annually until 2019 and provided funds of up to €500,000 for outbreak response to eradicate polio. Rotary International presented Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xabier Bettel, with its prestigious Polio Champion Award in November 2017. Grand Duc Henri of Luxembourg and  former Prime Minister Jean-Paul Juncker have also received the award.

“Healthier Kosovo¹” project is financed by the Government of Luxembourg and implemented by WHO, UN Development Programme and UN Volunteers. It aims to address environmental health issues by strengthening the capacities of national institutions for air pollution and health.Several awareness-raising workshops and trainings have been hosted with the ministry of health, most recently using WHO’s AirQ+ software as a way to conduct an environmental health impact assessment.