Push for more power for WHO
GERMANY and France want to give more money and power to the World Health Organization after the Covid-19 pandemic underscored long-standing financial and legal weaknesses at the UN agency, an internal document says.
The proposed reforms could be discussed at the WHO next month, three officials said, in a timeline that would confirm the two European powers’ growing concerns about the organisation, which they also see as excessively subject to external influences.
In a joint paper circulated among diplomats involved in the reform talks, Berlin and Paris said the WHO’s mandate, which includes preventing outbreaks across the world and helping governments tackle them, was not backed by sufficient financial resources and legal powers.
“Not only during the current pandemic, it has become clear that the WHO partly lacks the abilities to fulfil this mandate,” the document said.
A Western diplomat in Geneva, referring to member states’ contributions based on their gross domestic product, said: “The key point is the mismatch between WHO mandate and financing. It’s very much pro-WHO, it should have more money and (they are) asking for an increase in assessed contributions.”
France and Germany are seeking consensus “from Washington to Beijing”, a source close to the talks said. The move shows the two countries’ keen interest in an overhaul aimed at strengthening the WHO, despite talks on the matter with the US collapsing this month at G7 level over differing views about the reform.
France and Germany, whose health ministers pledged new funds after talks with WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in June, have not hidden their criticism of the WHO.
Their approach differs from that of the Trump administration which has cut funding, announced its withdrawal from next July, and accused Tedros of being a puppet of China.
The Franco-German reform plan is focused on strengthening the WHO, in part to empower it to be able to be more critical of member states if they do not honour global rules on transparency in reporting health and disease issues.
The seven-page document lists 10 reforms aimed at boosting the WHO’s legal powers and funding. “WHO’s overall budget with roughly $5 billion (R86bn) per biennium equals the funding of a larger sub-regional hospital,” the joint paper said, urging larger and more reliable funding.
Only a fifth of the agency’s budget comes from member states’ payments without strings attached. The remainder is raised through “short-term, unpredictable and largely highly specified voluntary contributions”, the document said, in an apparent reference to the role of individual philanthropic funders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
A stronger budget is needed in particular for handling emergencies, the document said, to avoid the WHO needing to raise funds amid outbreaks, which could further reduce its independence. WHO experts should be able to “independently investigate and assess (potential) outbreaks as early as possible”, the paper says. China has been accused in this pandemic and in past epidemics of being slow or reluctant to share data and to grant swift access to WHO teams.
The WHO should also be subject to a stronger oversight in emergencies to quickly assess its operations, proposing the creation of a group of national experts who could monitor crises.
To make sure that the proposed reforms have a proper follow-up, the document recommends the establishment of a panel of experts.