A healthy return: investment case for a sustainably financed WHO

Overview

The world needs a strengthened, empowered and sustainably financed WHO, at the centre of the global health architecture. To ensure that our structures, processes, and culture are fit for purpose, WHO has implemented far-reaching reforms over the past five years.

However, even as we work to strengthen WHO, we are undermined by our financial model with its over-dependence on voluntary, mostly earmarked, contributions for more than 80% of our budget. This constrains our ability to deliver the high-quality normative and technical work that Member States expect of us, to recruit and retain the best talent and to be the independent and authoritative global health leader which the world needs WHO to be.