Without money from the United States, WHO 2.5 billion dollars are missing to complete its budget-Liberation
It is quite a hole in the budget. In the absence of American fundsthe World Health Organization is missing $ 2.5 billion (around 2.3 billion euros) to complete its 2026-2027 budget, already seriously planed, according to information from specialized publication Health Policy Watch This Wednesday, April 2.
After Donald Trump’s announcement to withdraw from the United Nations health agency, WHO has gradually reduced its biennial budgetfrom $ 5.3 billion to 4.2 billion. But even this draft plane is not enough and there is a hole of $ 1.9 billion. With a share of 14 %, even sometimes more, the United States was historically the greatest donors of the agency.
This colossal breach in finance was announced to the staff on Tuesday. It is added to the nearly $ 600 million that already lacked for this year’s budget. Questioned by AFP, the WHO did not follow up immediately.
Besides his withdrawal from the UN agency, the American president also decided to freeze and partially eliminate any American foreign aid, including very important programs health assistance all over the world.
During the 2022-2023 budget period, Washington contributed to WHO up to $ 1.3 billion. But the United States has never paid its contributions for 2024 and should not pay for 2025 either. In all, the country owes $ 260 million just in contributions for 2024-2025, according to WHO figures.
The German Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, announced on Wednesday that the government was going to pay an additional 2 million euros to compensate for American failures. « The withdrawal of the United States from the WHO does not only threaten financial stability, but also multilateral cooperation in world health architecture », said the minister in a statement. Germany contributes approximately 3.65 % to the OMS overall 2024-2025 budget, according to organizational figures. These 2 million are added to the expected contribution, which represents an amount of just over $ 317 million.
Friday, the director general L’IMS, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, alerted the staff to a first hole of $ 600 million in this year’s budget, warning in a message consulted by AFP that the agency had « Other choice » than starting to reduce the wing. « These measures will first apply to the seat, starting with senior leaders, but will affect all levels and all regions », he explained. Last month, Ghebreyesus had asked Washington to reconsider its reductions in global health financing, warning that the sudden judgment of this aid threatened millions of lives and stressing that the disturbances of the global AIDS programs could alone lead to « More than 10 million additional cases of HIV infections and 3 million deaths related to HIV ». Pain lost.
