The 75th World Health Assembly, currently in progress in Geneva, Switzerland, that began on May 22 and will conclude on May 28, 2022, has already made history by adopting a new financial model for global health, but the key to success lies in good governance across the countries of the world even if we presume the member states would honour their commitment in respect to their contributions, especially when the world knows that annual global corruption loss in the health sector is USD 455 billion a year. The present decision in the first in-person Health Assembly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic has special significance, though many may find it ambitious. In absolute terms, WHO would see an increase of roughly USD 600 million a year by 2028-29 in the part of its income that comes from the most sustainable and predictable sources. The gradual increase in assessed contributions is to start from the next WHO’s budget for 2024-25 by 20 percent from the current 16 percent of the approved 2022-23 base budget.
The total estimated budget increase for the biennium 2022–2023 is USD 604.4 million, a 13% increase over the earlier budget presented, bringing the total budget for WHO’s work for 2022-2023 to USD 4.968 billion. The previously approved 2020-2021 Programme Budget amounted to USD 3.769 billion. There is a convergence of opinions that increasing the proportion of assessed contributions to cover a greater part of the base budget of WHO’s program budget would create a secure, sustainable financing stream, enabling a greater focus on fulfilling the core aims of the Organization. To encourage contribution the WHO has already come out with a study that shows economic sense in investing in the organization. The new financial model is also significant in the backdrop that the current financing model has been identified by several experts as posing a risk to the integrity and independence of its work. Another shortcoming of the present model that has been pointed out time and again was over-reliance on voluntary contributions with a large proportion earmarked for specific areas of work which resulted in ongoing misalignment between organizational priorities and the ability to finance them.
The report of the Working Group, set up in January 2021, chaired by Björn Kümmel, from Germany, has also included other recommendations, such as exploring the feasibility of a replenishment mechanism to broaden the financing base, which indicates that the decision of adoption needs follow up action in right earnest if at all we want to achieve the target. It is also subject to fulfillment of other conditions by the member states and also by the WHO in terms of governance. The report has asked the WHO Secretariat to work with a Member States task group to strengthen WHO’s governance, which is supposed to make further recommendations on transparency, efficiency, accountability, and compliance. The success of the new financial model for the WHO will also be sustainable only if the task group will be able to help, that is supposed to be the case, ensure that increases in Member States’ assessed contributions will be accompanied by further reforms to the way the WHO operates.
