Charity sans frontiers: US pullout sparks global act of solidarity with WHO

The decision by the Trump administration to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization (WHO) seems to have inspired people to step up to the plate and mobilise funds to save the global body from financial ruin.

Launched by a staff member of WHO, the UN’s highest and biggest agency for global health and safety, the ‘1 Dollar, 1 World’ fundraising drive is asking one billion people around the world to contribute at least $1 each to help the international body continue its operations amid “uncertainty and reduced funding”.

From vaccinating 94 percent of children in Gaza against polio during Israel’s 471-day-long war on Gaza to combating the deadly Ebola virus in war zones, WHO has responded to health emergencies worldwide over many decades.

It has also faced scathing criticism for being another bloated bureaucratic body that lets UN technocrats live comfortable lives in Switzerland on tax-free salaries. It faced harsh chastisement for mishandling health crises where it failed to challenge official reports and exercised poor coordination.

For President Donald Trump, however, the decision to withdraw from WHO was the “unfairly onerous payments” the US makes to the international body every year.

Leading doctors rushed to endorse the fundraising campaign that aims to generate $1 billion, roughly the same amount that the US - which is WHO’s biggest donor - gives to the UN agency on average for each two-year budget.

“I see the campaign as a more of a symbolic gesture, as an act of solidarity, as a way of saying, ‘Look, I care about WHO, and even if it is $1, I want to show my support’,” says Madhukar Pai, a global authority on tuberculosis (TB) who holds the inaugural chair at the Department of Global and Public Health at Canada’s McGill University.

“I feel like WHO is being unnecessarily attacked by the current US government, which is completely unjustified,” Pai tells TRT World.

He urged people to contribute to the fund, saying it is the only body with a UN mandate to work with all member states to deal with common, transnational threats like pandemics and climate crisis.

“There is no other entity able to do all of that. That’s why it is critical to give WHO the adequate resources they need to do their core job, which is to keep us all safe,” says Pai, who has been a part of WHO’s advisory committees, expert panels and guideline development groups for two decades on an unremunerative basis.

Who funds WHO?

WHO gets its funding from two main sources. All member states -- 194 if the US is counted -- pay their “assessed contributions”, each according to the size of its economy. Secondly, countries as well as philanthropic and individual partners make “voluntary contributions” to WHO.

Assessed contributions by member states cover less than 20 percent of the total WHO budget. The rest of the financing originates in the form of voluntary contributions.

The US has been the top donor, with total contributions amounting to nearly $1.3 billion during the latest two-year (2022–2023) budget period. Over $1 billion of it was in voluntary contributions.

In percentage terms, the US share of total WHO funding is around 15 percent.

The second and third top WHO donors are Germany ($856 million) and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($830 million).

According to Dr Joanne Liu, former international president of Doctors Without Borders, WHO should grow the share of assessed contributions in its total financing to make itself more sustainable over time.

But even if the WHO’s executive board convinces the member states to increase their assessed contributions in its next meeting scheduled from February 3 to 11, it will cover only the financial gap caused by the US withdrawal, she tells TRT World.

“(The campaign) might mitigate some of the setback… but if it’s not renewable and repeated over time, then it won't have a long-lasting effect.”

The 1 Dollar, 1 World campaign has raised nearly $65,000 since its launch last week.

Loss of communication

In addition to the loss of funding as a result of the US pullout, Liu says a collapse of communication between WHO and a number of US-based public health agencies and institutions is an equal cause of worry.

“It means we won't have any more fluid sharing of information on H5N1, which is a real concern in the US right now,” she says, referring to a deadly virus that can potentially transmit from cattle to human beings.

“If the US is not transparent about the state of play of the H5N1 in the country, we're all going to be in the dark. We'll all be taken again by surprise by something bigger than we can even imagine,” she says.

The US is a world leader in the surveillance of pathogens, she says, and its WHO exit will be “as detrimental as its financial pullout”.

Also, the right-ward swing in US politics seems to be rubbing off on its allies in some parts of the world. With conservative parties gaining electoral majorities in one country after another, experts say a reduction in voluntary contributions to WHO from other developed nations can't be ruled out.

“Oh, yes, it’s a huge cause of anxiety… the world is swinging more and more to the far-right, and the inherent philosophy of the far-right is that everybody else is bad,” says Pai.

Praising the US for playing a “big role” in eliminating polio from most parts of the world, Pai says Washington has also been a major contributor to childhood vaccination for TB programmes, an area of his expertise.

It was the conservative government of US President George W Bush that played a “massive role” in scaling up access to HIV medicines, saving up to 25 million lives worldwide.

“It was all done by previous US governments, including President Bush’s. They understood that the US had a moral obligation to the world as one of the richest countries,” he says.

As part of a broader freeze on foreign aid, the Trump administration told organisations in foreign countries on January 27 to stop distributing HIV drugs purchased with US funds.

Pai says he expects other countries to play a bigger role in helping WHO make up for the loss of US contributions. “I also want to see African nations, for example, to be more self-reliant. They should have their own HIV treatment programmes so that they're not reliant on the US government,” he adds.

Though the fund-raising drive has been launched by a staffer, the UN Foundation director of Campaigns and Supporter Engagement Sandra Sorial insists that WHO has nothing to do with it.

“It is important to note that this is a staff-led initiative and not a corporate campaign,” Sorial tells TRT World.