he Trump administration's recent decision to halt funding the World Health Organization (WHO) has been widely criticized, as officials warn it will constrain the organization's ability to respond to COVID-19. The move, which is in line with this administration's hostility toward global institutions, would slash WHO's budget by about 15% if the freeze were to be fully implemented. Without the U.S.'s roughly $893 Million investment, WHO would be forced to curtail a significant number of services that some of the world's most vulnerable people rely on—increasing everything from the likelihood of another pandemic, to the number of deaths from preventable illnesses.
The decision to pause funding pending a two-to-three month review marked the culmination of Trump's anger with WHO's inappropriate deference to China at the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, as the country's officials were failing to contain it, silencing whistleblowers, and reporting false information throughout the winter. Though Trump himself praised China's response efforts early on and well into March. But through all of the bluster, it can be hard to tell what WHO's actual role is: what it does and who it helps. It's worth examining then the WHO's functions to get a better sense of what the loss of revenue could cost people everywhere—through the current pandemic and beyond.
WHO was adopted into the UN system in 1948 and is mandated with coordinating the world's response to health emergencies, monitoring disease outbreaks, providing technical support, and working to eradicate longstanding diseases. For citizens particularly in North America and Western Europe however, the guidance and messaging they've received from the WHO regarding COVID-19 may be their first prolonged encounter with the institution. Whereas the countries that the WHO's 149 field offices are concentrated in, tend to be those whose economies and public-health infrastructure are suffering the consequences of colonialism, war, political upheaval, and acute civil strife. While certainly imperfect, the agency's work helps fill critical resource and information gaps in these countries’ healthcare systems.
For example, a recent IRC report reveals a chilling global disparity in access to ventilators—with some countries lacking even ten on hand. Although the Southern Hemisphere's infections have so far lagged behind the North's, it is quickly beginning to catch up. If many of its already precarious healthcare systems get overrun the WHO would serve as the likely conduit through which these countries could work to secure more of them. In Kurdistan—the autonomous region between Northern Iraq and Turkey—the agency provided roughly half-a-million dollars’ worth of medical supplies to fight COVID-19. Additionally, it is coordinating the various attempts being made by governments and pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine.
But before the world was paralyzed by COVID-19, the WHO was aggressively pursuing a number of initiatives that were of vital importance to millions. In November, the organization pre-approved an Ebola vaccine for use as West Africa continues to see new cases of that virus following an outbreak that began in 2018. The agency's work combatting polio—which began in 1988 and is often cited as its central achievement—had also recently moved into its full eradication and containment phase.
The WHO's complex bureaucracy, funding model, and previous failures have opened it up to well-warranted criticism. Experts are in agreement that the institution needs to undergo substantial reforms following COVID-19. Yet attempting to drain $893 million from it sends precisely the wrong message at a time when international cooperation is needed more than ever.
The WHO is driven by its member states. Support and commitment from all parties—especially one as large as the U.S.—will be required if the WHO is to build on the successes it has had and become a more effective organization going forward. It isn't clear whether or not a U.S. president can unilaterally revoke money from the WHO that Congress has pledged. However, it is clear that if the agency were to experience a disruption to its revenue stream of this scale its ongoing efforts would be substantially restricted.
Vaccines could lose funding for development while children may have a harder time receiving them. The world's most fragile healthcare systems may find it even harder to get what they need; and lives which otherwise could have been saved end up being lost because tough budget cuts were made. If nothing else, COVID-19 has revealed two things: how unequipped we were, and how interdependent we are. Investing in collective institutions—while pushing them to be better prepared, more proactive, and swifter in their responses—is the only way manage an outbreak like this from devastating at this large scale again.
a global affairs media network
The Cost of $893 Million
UN Photo by Eskinder Debebe. World Health Assembly in 2019.
May 4, 2020
T
he Trump administration's recent decision to halt funding the World Health Organization (WHO) has been widely criticized, as officials warn it will constrain the organization's ability to respond to COVID-19. The move, which is in line with this administration's hostility toward global institutions, would slash WHO's budget by about 15% if the freeze were to be fully implemented. Without the U.S.'s roughly $893 Million investment, WHO would be forced to curtail a significant number of services that some of the world's most vulnerable people rely on—increasing everything from the likelihood of another pandemic, to the number of deaths from preventable illnesses.
The decision to pause funding pending a two-to-three month review marked the culmination of Trump's anger with WHO's inappropriate deference to China at the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, as the country's officials were failing to contain it, silencing whistleblowers, and reporting false information throughout the winter. Though Trump himself praised China's response efforts early on and well into March. But through all of the bluster, it can be hard to tell what WHO's actual role is: what it does and who it helps. It's worth examining then the WHO's functions to get a better sense of what the loss of revenue could cost people everywhere—through the current pandemic and beyond.
WHO was adopted into the UN system in 1948 and is mandated with coordinating the world's response to health emergencies, monitoring disease outbreaks, providing technical support, and working to eradicate longstanding diseases. For citizens particularly in North America and Western Europe however, the guidance and messaging they've received from the WHO regarding COVID-19 may be their first prolonged encounter with the institution. Whereas the countries that the WHO's 149 field offices are concentrated in, tend to be those whose economies and public-health infrastructure are suffering the consequences of colonialism, war, political upheaval, and acute civil strife. While certainly imperfect, the agency's work helps fill critical resource and information gaps in these countries’ healthcare systems.
For example, a recent IRC report reveals a chilling global disparity in access to ventilators—with some countries lacking even ten on hand. Although the Southern Hemisphere's infections have so far lagged behind the North's, it is quickly beginning to catch up. If many of its already precarious healthcare systems get overrun the WHO would serve as the likely conduit through which these countries could work to secure more of them. In Kurdistan—the autonomous region between Northern Iraq and Turkey—the agency provided roughly half-a-million dollars’ worth of medical supplies to fight COVID-19. Additionally, it is coordinating the various attempts being made by governments and pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine.
But before the world was paralyzed by COVID-19, the WHO was aggressively pursuing a number of initiatives that were of vital importance to millions. In November, the organization pre-approved an Ebola vaccine for use as West Africa continues to see new cases of that virus following an outbreak that began in 2018. The agency's work combatting polio—which began in 1988 and is often cited as its central achievement—had also recently moved into its full eradication and containment phase.
The WHO's complex bureaucracy, funding model, and previous failures have opened it up to well-warranted criticism. Experts are in agreement that the institution needs to undergo substantial reforms following COVID-19. Yet attempting to drain $893 million from it sends precisely the wrong message at a time when international cooperation is needed more than ever.
The WHO is driven by its member states. Support and commitment from all parties—especially one as large as the U.S.—will be required if the WHO is to build on the successes it has had and become a more effective organization going forward. It isn't clear whether or not a U.S. president can unilaterally revoke money from the WHO that Congress has pledged. However, it is clear that if the agency were to experience a disruption to its revenue stream of this scale its ongoing efforts would be substantially restricted.
Vaccines could lose funding for development while children may have a harder time receiving them. The world's most fragile healthcare systems may find it even harder to get what they need; and lives which otherwise could have been saved end up being lost because tough budget cuts were made. If nothing else, COVID-19 has revealed two things: how unequipped we were, and how interdependent we are. Investing in collective institutions—while pushing them to be better prepared, more proactive, and swifter in their responses—is the only way manage an outbreak like this from devastating at this large scale again.
