World Health Organization (WHO) launched Thursday's campaign is calling on the world to invest $1.5 billion into an emergency fund, a pool of money separate from regular operating funds aimed at addressing health crises around the world.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus detailed the various global health emergencies the WHO is trying to address in a press conference on Thursday, highlighting the collapse of a functioning state and poor conditions in Afghanistan. The campaign was launched with a pamphlet of over 100 pages. It was caused by the misuse of health centers by Hamas terrorists to hide fighters and terrorists in the Gaza Strip, and by the spread of cholera, malaria, and monkeypox (mpox) in the Gaza Strip. sub-Saharan Africa.
united nations agency predicted By 2025, the world will have to deal with 42 health emergencies.
The appeal follows years of bad publicity as a result of the WHO's poor performance under Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, which has come at a high cost. In early 2020, WHO was at the forefront of the next effort. I guarantee Global observers have said the highly contagious coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, does not have “human-to-human transmission,” and have since released a report on the origins of the virus. , so lacking in clarity that Tedros himself criticized it. A number of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have accused WHO staff of rape and forcing them to perform sex acts for coveted jobs and other humanitarian needs. In 2023, WHO paid some victims $250 and provided baking classes.
Tedros ran unopposed in the 2022 election to secure a second term as head of the world's largest public health agency.
WHO emergency appeal was popular The agency's work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, among other things, is a key reason for its request for more than $1 billion in additional funding. The agency's breakdown of how the funds would be used listed the Democratic Republic of the Congo as one of the lowest-cost crises in 2025, but only about $2 million of the $1.5 billion requested has been spent. It was.
The most damaging crisis on the list is the crisis in Gaza, known as the “Occupied Palestinian Territories.” The WHO is seeking nearly $300 million to address the situation in the conflict zone, which has been controlled by Hamas for nearly two decades.
The WHO is also requesting $141 million to provide medical and other aid to Syria after the fall of the Assad dynasty in December. The group predicted that $135 million would be needed in 2025 to address the ongoing crisis in Sudan.
“The climate crisis, increasingly frequent and severe disasters, and unprecedented levels of conflict are putting health at risk, disrupting health systems and leaving displaced populations more susceptible to disease, reducing the need for life-saving vaccinations, especially for children. It is disrupting care,” said Tedros and WHO's emergencies director. Michael Ryan wrote in a message accompanying the appeal.
“We are no longer moving from an emergency to recovery; we are instead enduring periodic crises lasting years or decades, leaving many people without access to health services,” they said. continued. “But as the need for urgent aid grows, the global financial landscape contracts, and we are forced to make increasingly difficult decisions about who we can reach and how far we can go.”
At a press conference announcing the push, Tedros argued that modern health crises are “relentless, overlapping and intensifying.”
“Without adequate and sustainable funding, we face the impossible task of deciding who receives care and who does not,” he said grimly.
They said funding for the WHO is a “powerful act of global solidarity” that could “help save lives, protect the universal right to health and restore peace to communities.” he claimed.
The appeal emphasized that this $1.5 billion is intended for the WHO Emergencies Fund (CFE) and not the WHO's general funding pool. Its purpose, authorities said, is to “revolutionize the way we respond to public health emergencies.”
While claiming that the funds will be used to explicitly address the health emergency, the appeal pamphlet reiterates the authorities' obsession with “climate change,” which itself refers to “human health, social, It is a health crisis that will wreak havoc on the economy and overwhelming medical care. systems around the world. ”
“Climate-driven disasters such as floods, droughts and heat waves intensify disease outbreaks and exacerbate health inequalities,” WHO asserted. “WHO will lead the emergency response and build health system resilience to mitigate these impacts.”
The agency also claims the funding will help “prevent sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment” and “strengthen gender-based violence prevention and response, including capacity building and strengthening accountability within WHO.” claimed to provide funding. It does not specifically mention the ongoing sexual abuse scandal in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The WHO's appeal arrives less than a week before the United States, historically one of the WHO's most generous donors, welcomes President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House. trump is famous cut In 2020, it cut funding to the WHO and withdrew from the organization following its disastrous response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, saying the agency “failed in its fundamental responsibilities and must be held accountable.” he declared.
Outgoing President Joe Biden reintegrated the United States into the WHO and restored funding. After President Trump was elected in November, multiple reports indicated that the next president plan He will withdraw from the WHO “immediately” after taking office.
