Geneva – Stripped of US Funds, The head of the World Health Organization, on Monday, appealed to the member countries to support their “extremely modest” application of an annual budget of $ 2.1 billion by putting that sum in perspective together with disbursements for advertising campaigns for tobacco or the cost of war.
After almost 80 years of striving to improve human life and health, which critics say that it has done wrong or not enough, The UN Health Agency He is fighting on his own after the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in January he stopped the funds of the United States, which has traditionally been the largest donor.
“Billion two points and one is the equivalent of global military spending every eight hours,” said Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Billion two points is the price of a stealthy bomber, to kill people.”
“And $ 2.1 billion is a quarter of what the tobacco industry spends on advertising and promotion every year. Again, a product that kills people,” he told the WHO annual assembly. “It seems that someone ignited the prices of what is really valuable in our world.”
Tedros did not make a specific reference to US cuts, but has previously said that the extraction of the United States was an “error” and urged Washington to reconsider.
A state department spokesman, in an email, confirmed on Monday that “the United States will not present a delegation to participate in the World Health Assembly.”
Who has presented a budget for the next two years that is 22% less than the originally planned, largely in response to us and other western fund cuts, and says that it has obtained commitments for approximately 60% of that. But it still faces a budget gap of $ 1.7 billion.
“We know that in the current landscape, mobilizing that sum will be a challenge. We are not naive for that challenge,” Tedros said.
“But for an organization that works on the field in 150 countries with a vast mission and a mandate that Member States have given us, $ 4.2 billion for two years, or $ 2.1 billion a year, is not ambitious. It is extremely modest,” he said.
As a result of cuts, the UN Health Agency this year has seen a fall in its ability to carry out its broad mandate to do everything from recommending reductions in sugar levels in soft drinks to direct the global response to pandemics such as COVID-19 or outbreaks such as polio or ebola.
Tedros and his team have been dealing with an answer to US cuts, as well as reduced disbursements of rich European countries that are concerned about an expansionist Russia and are putting more money towards defense, and less towards humanitarian and development aid.
Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Global Health Policy and Policy Center at Georgetown University, said other countries have used the US cut.
“WHO faces an existential crisis that goes far beyond a budget gap to the question of whether this type of multilateralism can succeed in addressing global health in this new era of nationalism and misinformation,” he said, referring to discord among many countries that could cost lives.
“Literally, millions will probably die unnecessarily in the current trajectory and the world’s health ministers do not seem capable of a coherent response,” Kavanagh added.
Barril for the World Health Assembly of nine days there are two main advances that are destined to reinforce whose financial strength and strengthen the world’s ability to deal with future pandemics.
Member countries are expected to increase annual fees, known as “evaluated contributions”, by 20% to support who finances and reduce dependence on voluntary contributions from governments, which change every year and represent more than half of the budget.
They are also expected to accept a hard ” Pandemic treatise “That was born from a desire to avoid any repetition of the irregular and unequal response to COVID-19 when the next, and inevitable, most experts, pandemic blows.
Among other things, the treaty would ensure that countries that share critical virus samples will receive any tests, medications and vaccines resulting and grant those up to 20% of these products to ensure that the poorest countries may have access to them.
“Each World Health Assembly is significant, but this year is especially,” said Tedros. “This is really a historical moment.”
The effectiveness of the treaty will face doubts when the United States, that pours billions in a rapid work of pharmaceutical companies to develop COVID-19 vaccines, is sitting outside and because countries do not face sanctions if they ignore it, a common problem in international law.
Kavanagh said that the approval of the treaty “could be a significant victory: the evidence that the United States government can no longer be indispensable in global health” and could offer an opportunity to develop nations in the “global south” in the long term.
Trump has ridiculed for a long time who, even back in his first mandate, when he took the United States about his alleged Kowtowing with China and other supposed false steps in the Covid Pandemia. President Joe Biden put the United States again.
On his first day back in office in January, Trump signed an executive order to stop the future transfers of US government funds.
Other opponents continue to attack who. Citizengo, an activist group that supports the problems of the freedom of right to life and religious, protested Monday against the pandemic treaty outside the UN complex in Geneva, where the meeting was being held.
The rally included a balloon sculpture in the shape of the world and a banner that invests against “globalist elites” and showing an image of tedros and the co -founder billionaire Microsoft Bill Gates, an important one who defends, gives the hand while surrounded by dollars.
“Following Covid, WHO gathered and thought it was a good idea to centralize even more power,” said Citizengo activist Sebastian Lukomski, accusing who of an effort to “eliminate the most fundamental freedoms and not learn from the mistakes that were made during Covid.”
In the period prior to the Assembly, which has been cleaning the house and reducing costs.
At a meeting on his budget last week, Tedros, a former Minister of Health and Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, announced a shaking of the senior management that included the exit of the key advisor Dr. Michael Ryan of work as an emergency head.
Tedros said last week that the loss of American funds and another assistance has left WHO with a salary gap of more than $ 500 million.
