NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Ensuring a well-funded World Health Organization is one of the biggest responsibilities — and headaches — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will have to bear in the next five years when he officially takes over as director-general of WHO in July.

WHO’s budget has been problematic for years, to say the least. While voluntary contributions to the organization have been increasing, a huge bulk of it, over 80 percent, has largely been earmarked to a limited set of programs, leaving others such as the new health emergencies program to suffer from underfunding. In 2016, outgoing Director-General Margaret Chan reprioritized $130 million in funding for the program to ensure it “doesn’t go under.”

Tedros has repeatedly mentioned the need to expand the WHO’s donor base, and he reiterated this during his first press conference as the newly elected director-general on Wednesday at Palais des Nations in Geneva, where the current 70th World Health Assembly is held. WHO’s funding unit requires upsizing in terms of size and skills of human resources, he said. WHO should look into what it can learn from other United Nations agencies, such as UNICEF, on the issue of fundraising.