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The World Health Organization said on Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro that it had raised nearly $4 billion dollars through a new financing mechanism it launched in May. Some of the money came in from pledges made during the G20 summit in Rio, helping the organization's funding needs for the coming four years. The stakes have risen substantially for the WHO since Donald Trump won the US presidential election earlier this month.
During his first term in office, from 2017 to 2021, the Republican relentlessly attacked the UN health agency over its handling of the COVID pandemic especially, and began withdrawing his country—traditionally the WHO's top donor—from the organization. His successor, current President Joe Biden, renewed ties with the agency, but fears abound that Trump might slam the door shut again. The Geneva-based organization said that pledges received from Australia, Indonesia and Spain at the G20 summit in Brazil, combined with earlier donations and pledges, had yielded $3.
8 billion in funding for the next four years. That represents 53 percent of the $7.1 billion budget shortfall the agency faces for the 2025-2028 period.
Nearly a third of the WHO's funding comes from so-called assessed contributions, the membership fees that each member state pays, based on the size of their economies. At its creation in 1948, the agency relied entirely on state contributions. However, over the years, it became increasingly reliant on donations.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the UN health agency created the WHO Foundation to marshal new resources from businesses and philanthropists. Two years later, member states agreed to immediately increase the portion of the WHO's biannual budget covered by membership fees, rising to 50 percent by 2030-2031. The organization also launched last May a new investment round aimed at securing as much funding as possible up front for its core activities.
Since then the agency has attracted dozens of new donors, including over a dozen African nations. © 2024 AFP.
