US formally withdraws from WHO

• The United States officially left the World Health Organisation on January 22 after a year of warnings.

• The decision reflected failures in the UN health agency’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of State said the WHO delayed declaring a global public health emergency and a pandemic during the early stages of COVID-19, costing the world critical weeks as the virus spread. 

• The WHO’s report evaluating the possible origins of COVID-19 rejected the possibility that scientists created the virus, even though China refused to provide genetic sequences from individuals infected early in the pandemic and information on the Wuhan laboratories’ activities and biosafety conditions.

• The US also blamed WHO’s failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of member states.

• On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump announced the US plan to leave the WHO. 

• During the yearlong process, the US stopped funding WHO, withdrew all personnel from WHO, and began pivoting activities previously conducted with WHO to direct bilateral engagements with other countries and organisations. 

• With the exit from WHO, the US will be coordinating with WHO solely in a limited fashion to effectuate withdrawal.  

• Going forward, the US government will continue its global health leadership through existing and new engagements directly with other countries, the private sector, non-governmental organisations, and faith-based entities. 

How WHO is funded?

WHO gets its funding from two main sources: 

i) Member States paying their assessed contributions (countries’ membership dues). 

ii) Voluntary contributions from Member States and other partners. 

i) Assessed contributions are a percentage of a country’s gross domestic product (the percentage is agreed by the United Nations General Assembly). Member States approve them every two years at the World Health Assembly. They cover less than 20 per cent of the total budget. Assessed contributions have declined as an overall percentage of the Programme Budget and have, for several years, accounted for less than one quarter of the Organisation’s financing. 

ii) The remainder of WHO’s financing is in the form of voluntary contributions, largely from Member States as well as from other United Nations organisations, intergovernmental organisations, philanthropic foundations, the private sector, and other sources. In recent years, voluntary contributions have accounted for more than three quarters of the Organisation’s financing.

The US is the biggest single donor

• The US plays a crucial role in supporting WHO to protect and improve the health of Americans and people around the world.

• The US is the biggest single donor to the WHO, contributing through assessed contributions and voluntary funding.

• In recent years, US assessed contributions (mandatory dues) averaged approximately $111 million annually. 

• In addition, the US provided voluntary contributions averaging roughly $570 million per year — amounting to billions of dollars over time — often exceeding the combined contributions of many other member states.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)