‘Health scholars have long pointed out that the funding of WHO is not commensurate with the global role it is supposed to play. The agency’s overall spending is less than the budget of some major hospitals in the United States. Less than one-fifth of its budget comes from “assessed contributions,” essentially membership fees paid by the 194 countries that make up WHO. The rest of the organisation’s funding comes from donations, with the United States as the biggest donor. “As each outbreak shows, countries’ expectations for the WHO are not aligned with the limitations on funding, political, and legal authorities those same countries set on the organisation,” Phelan says.
‘In an interview in December 2019, Tedros told Science that WHO’s reliance on just a few donors left the organisation vulnerable. “If one of them refuses to continue funding,” he said, “WHO could get into a serious shock”.’
Read here (Science, April 14, 2020)
