Defunding Global Health: What a Weakened WHO Means for the World
PHM, TWN and G2H2 invite you to a webinar on Defunding Global Health: What a Weakened WHO means for the World.
🎙️ Dr. Andrew Harmer will unpack what this means for global health, multilateralism and politics more widely.
🗓️ 16 July 2025
🕒 3 PM CEST
Join us
Register: https://tinyurl.com/bde9d4fh
The World Health Organization (WHO) is facing one of its most severe budgetary contractions in years. At the 78th World Health Assembly in May 2025, Member States approved a sharply reduced core budget of US$ 4.2 billion for the 2026–2027 biennium — far below the US$ 5.3 billion the WHO had originally budgeted. Even with a modest increase in contributions from Member States, the budget leaves nearly 40% of core funding unfunded, posing critical risks to the organization's ability to deliver on its mandate. These budget cuts will have a direct impact on the health services delivered by WHO through its Health Emergencies Programme, which supports countries facing crises such as disease outbreaks, armed conflict, and humanitarian disasters. They also threaten WHO’s core mandate of setting global health norms, guidelines and protocols, a function that is especially critical for politically contested areas such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
Undermining this role could severely affect access to essential care for women, girls, LGBTQIA+ communities, people in detention, sex workers, migrants, and other marginalized populations who rely on rights-based, inclusive health guidance and support from WHO. Dr. Andrew Harmer, Senior Lecturer in Global Public Health at Queen Mary University of London, has been following WHO's funding dynamics for many years and will unpack the political dynamics behind WHO's shrinking budget, what this means for WHO and how WHO’s increasing reliance on voluntary, donor-driven funding undermines its capabilities and risks comprising its legitimacy. This is an essential conversation not only for those concerned with global health, but with multilateralism and politics more widely.
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