The World Health Organization, the world’s leading health agency, needs more money to meet its goals. And they are not simple, among these is the care of the world’s health emergencies, which are summarized in – nothing more and nothing less – the conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen; the covid-19 pandemic and monkeypox. A task that needs resources. And more.
For this reason, its CEO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesusraised its voice to ask the 194 Member States and other donors to finance the organization with US$2,540 million to address all these action fronts. Money that, according to the United Nations Organization, would be enough to serve 339 million people, 25% more than in 2022.
Ghebreyesus assured that “more people than ever are at risk of getting sick or going hungry, they need help now and the world cannot look the other way and expect crises to resolve themselves. We are witnessing an unprecedented convergence of crises, which demands an unprecedented response.”
The WHO added that there is another series of crises that are linked to climate change and food security, as well as the effects of the coronavirus on various health networks in the world.
In fact, regarding the armed conflict in Ukraine, the organization’s representative in that country, Jarno Habicht, reported that last week more than 700 attacks against health facilities since Russia began its offensive in February 2022. This has caused “sanitary facilities to be unable to fulfill their duty.”
The WHO ambassador for health financing and former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, joined this call asking donors to “respond urgently to this emergency to finance vaccines, medicines, equipment and medical knowledge.”
How is the WHO financed?
The World Health Organization currently has a budget close to US$9,000 millionwhich come from three sources of resources: specific voluntary contributions, voluntary contributions by theme and flexible funds.
The latter is divided into fixed contributions (AC), which are fees paid by countries for being members of the WHO and whose amount is calculated based on their wealth and population; and in basic voluntary contributions (CVC), which are flexible resources that States donate –apart from the money they pay for being members–, whose destination is left to the will of the health organization to finance its programmatic work.
How much money does the WHO currently have?
According to its own page, that body has an approved budget for the years 2022 and 2023 of 8,689 million dollars (US $8,689’804,000), whose 63% comes from specific voluntary contributions, which total US $5,504,791,000.
It is followed by flexible funds, which total US $1,623,751,000 (18%) from fixed contributions from the 194 affiliated countries (957 million dollars) and from basic voluntary contributions (212 million dollars). And finally there are the US $458 million (5%) from voluntary contributions by theme.
To better explain the issue of financing the World Health Organization and the request for more resources it made, EL COLOMBIANO spoke with two health researchers. They are Johnattan García, a researcher at the Department of Global Health at Harvard University, and Camilo Prieto, a doctor, professor at the Javeriana University and researcher at the Colombian Geological Service.
What is WHO’s funding based on?
Johnattan Garcia: What they do is establish fixed contributions and charge member states every two years, since the WHO has a biannual budget. The formula as it is created is according to the population and the per capita income of each one. The contributions of the countries are obligatory and others are voluntary. In fact, less than 15% of what the organization collects comes from mandatory contributions.
Camilo Prieto: It is based on solidarity as a principle in which countries contribute depending on the size of their economies. That is why there is no fixed quota for all nations, but rather the contribution depends on the economy. The advantage is that those who have more contribute more, but likewise have more influence in decision-making.
Is this one of the times when health emergencies are most attended to?
J.G: Yes, due to the situation of climate change and overpopulation that affect living conditions and that generate complex situations that take lives; as well as infectious diseases that threaten humanity, such as in Africa, where there was a resurgence of Ebola, and other diseases that take the lives of many people. Especially in countries where there are no strong health systems and the only way out for them is the WHO.
C.P: Yes, and more resources are going to be demanded for the care and investigation of outbreaks with pandemic potentialbecause what has been found is that phenomena such as wildlife trafficking and deforestation are favoring the interspecies jump of viruses from animals to humans.
Why are state contributions important?
JG: Because the WHO should only be financed by the international community, but the contributions are not enough for what it should do. After the pandemic, nothing has been done to change the way resources are collected.
C.P: Because more technology and funding for more research are needed to understand the behavior of different types of viruses and also for the development of vaccines.