Countries agree to sustainably finance WHO

Context

The United Nations member countries adopted sustainable financing recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO) at the ongoing 75th World Health Assembly (WHA).

About

About adopted recommendations:

The move was aimed at making the global health body’s financing more flexible by ensuring funding sustainable and predictable.
There are two key sources for WHO’s funding assessed contributions which make up a percentage of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) agreed upon by the UN General Assembly (UNGA). These are essentially each country’s membership dues and voluntary contributions from Member States and other partners.
The largest contributions in the form of membership dues come from the
United States ($219 million),
China ($115 million),
Japan ($82 million),
Germany ($58 million),
Britain ($44 million).
The gradual increase to assessed contributions will start with WHO’s 2024-25 budget, with a proposed 20 per cent increase over the assessed contributions in the approved 2022-23 base budget.
Aim: The aim is to reach 50 per cent of WHO’s budget by 2028-2029 if possible, and by 2030-31 at the latest up from the current 16 per cent in 2020-21.
This essentially amounts to an increase of an estimated $600 million a year till 2028-2029.

75^th World Health Assembly (WHA):

The World Health Assembly (WHA) is one of the three WHO organs (WHA, Executive Board (EB) and Secretariat) and the supreme decision-making body of the WHO comprising of 194 Member States (MS).
It adopts decisions and resolutions recommended by the WHO Executive Board.
The 75^th WHA took place in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2022.
The main topic is “health for peace and peace for health”.
It discussed matters focusing on four pillars, three of which contribute to the “triple billion targets”:
- Pillar 1: One billion more people benefiting from universal health coverage
- Pillar 2: One billion more people better protected from health emergencies
- Pillar 3: One billion more people enjoying better health and well-being
- Pillar 4: More effective and efficient WHO providing better support to countries