His Excellency Mr Mohammed A Al Jadaan Minister of Finance Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus signed a new contribution agreement in the amount of US 90 million in flexible funding to support of the implementation of the COVID 19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan The Flexible funding is critical to WHO s ability to direct resources to where they are most needed to respond to the health needs of vulnerable communities affected by the pandemic This important contribution is part of the US 500 million pledge announced following the extraordinary G20 summit on 26 March 2020 that was called and chaired by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of WHO s major supporters in different areas of global health and primarily in emergency response said Dr Tedros We thank the Kingdom and its people for the continued support towards the Global COVID 19 Response Through this contribution the Kingdom has demonstrated its unequivocal solidarity with WHO and its global leadership which will greatly support the most vulnerable peoples across the world The contribution of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is critical to WHO s efforts to support countries that are struggling to contain COVID 19 this contribution will enable WHO to continue strengthening country readiness and response operations accelerating priority research and innovation and coordination of the response at global regional and country level as set out in the Organizations Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a longstanding partnership with WHO and is a strong supporter of global public health initiatives Over the past five years alone the Kingdom has contributed over US 300 Million to WHO s operations in various countries including Yemen Iraq Pakistan Bangladesh among others