The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed to reduce a fifth of its budget after the United States’s decision to withdraw, and now it must reduce its work scope and strength, said its boss in an internal email seen by AFP On Saturday.
WHO faces an income gap of almost $ 600 million in 2025 and “has no other option”, but to start cutting, the director general Tedros Adanom Ghebreyesus sent Friday to Friday to the UN staff.
In addition to causing the justification of the United States, after returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump decided to freeze virtually all foreign aid, including great assistance to increase health worldwide. The United States was, with much, WHO’s largest donor.
“The dramatic cuts to the official development assistance of the United States of America and others are causing massive interruption to countries, NGOs and United Nations agencies, including WHO,” Tedros said in his email.
He said that even before Trump triggered the WHO’s one -year -old retirement process, the organization already faced financial limitations and had begun to work on efficiency measures more than nine months ago.
“The announcement of the United States, combined with recent reductions in official development assistance by some countries to finance a greater defense expense, has made our situation much more acute,” said Tedros.
“While we have achieved substantial cost savings, the prevailing economic and geopolitical conditions have made the mobilization of resources particularly difficult. As a result, we are facing an income gap of almost $ 600 million only this year.”
Who cuts budget
Last month, the WHO Executive Board reduced the budget proposed for 2026-2027 from $ 5.3 billion to $ 4.9 billion.
“Since then, the prospects for development assistance have deteriorated, not only for WHO but for the entire international health ecosystem,” Tedros said. “Therefore, we have proposed to the Member States an additional reduced budget of $ 4.2 billion, a reduction of 21 percent of the proposed original budget.”
In the last two-year budget cycle of the body, by 2022-23, the United States launched $ 1.3 billion, representing 16.3pc of the budget of $ 7.89 billion. Most of the US financing. It was through voluntary contributions for specific assigned projects, instead of fixed membership rates.
“Despite our best efforts, we are now at the point where we have no choice but to reduce the scale of our work and the workforce,” said Tedros. “This reduction will begin at the headquarters, starting with the upper leadership, but will affect all levels and regions.”
