A major cut for the UN institution. The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed to reduce its budget by the United States, its main contributor, to withdraw, and must now reduce its missions and staff, said its director in an internal email consulted by AFP on Saturday.
The WHO faces a shortfall of almost $ 600 million in 2025 and has “no other choice” than starting to make cuts, explained the director general of the institution, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the message sent to the staff of the UN health agency on Friday.
In addition to triggering the withdrawal of his country after entering the White House in January, President Donald Trump decided to freeze practically all American foreign aid, including important programs to improve health in the world.
The United States had already started the procedures to leave the WHO during Donald Trump’s first term in 2020. He justified his decision in January by the gap of American and Chinese financial contributions, accusing the organization of “ripping” his country.
A big contributor behind
As a result, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had already warned at the end of January that WHO would take economy measures. The United States was by far the largest contributor to the WHO budget: on the last two-year budgetary cycle, for 2022-23, it brought 16.3 % of the 7.89 billion dollars of total budget of the organization.
“Drastic reductions in public development assistance by the United States and other countries cause enormous disruptions for United NGOs, NGOs and United Nations, including WHO,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in his e-mail.
Before the start of the American withdrawal process, the WHO was already faced with financial constraints, and had started more than nine months ago to work on measures to improve its efficiency, also notes its manager.
But “the announcement of the United States, combined with recent reductions in public development aid of certain countries to finance a defense spending, made our situation much more critical,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Although we have made substantial cost savings, current economic and geopolitical conditions make the mobilization of resources particularly difficult,” he wrote.
In February, the WHO Executive Council reduced the budget proposed for 2026-2027 from 5.3 to 4.9 billion dollars. “Since then, the prospects for development aid have deteriorated,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. And “we therefore proposed to the Member States a still reduced budget of $ 4.2 billion, a drop of 21 % compared to the budget initially proposed”.
The majority of American funding came from voluntary contributions for specific projects, rather than a fixed participation. “Despite all our efforts, we are now to the point where we have no choice but to reduce the perimeter of our work and our staff,” concludes Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. And to specify: “These measures will first apply to the seat level, starting with the senior leaders, but will affect all levels and all regions”.