Lawmakers appeal for WHO
Funding halt called particularly harmful to Venezuelans
MIAMI — As much as $110 million in U.S. funding for disease prevention in Latin America as well as U.S. support for Venezuelan migrants has been thrown into doubt as part of President Donald Trump’s decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization over its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Rep. Eliot Engel, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo complaining that freezing funds for the Pan American Health Organization threatened to worsen the plight of Venezuelans suffering at the hands of President Nicolas Maduro.
“We believe it is dangerous and shortsighted of the Trump Administration to pause U.S. funding for the life-saving work” by the Pan American Health Organization in Venezuela, the New York Democrat wrote in the letter, which was also signed by Democratic Rep. Albio Sires, chairman of the subcommittee focused on Latin America.
The Pan American Health Organization said this week that the U.S. had suspended its contributions as an extension of Trump’s funding freeze for WHO.
But two U.S. officials cautioned that no final decision had been made. One said the next U.S. payment isn’t due until late May and an exclusion for PAHO is being discussed. Both officials insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The Washington-based PAHO is unique in that it is both a regional office in the Americas for WHO but also a separately run institution that predates by almost a half century the creation of the United Nations agency. Only about a third of its funding comes from WHO, with the rest provided by its 35 members, of which the U.S. is by far its largest contributor, responsible for 60% of its overall budget. Currently the U.S. owes the Pan American Health Organization $110 million in assessed contributions for 2019 and 2020.
The State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development would not comment.
Engel in his letter said he was dismayed to learn that $12 million in U.S. funding for PAHO to conduct diagnostics and tracing for the coronavirus in Venezuela and among Venezuelan migrants in Colombia was on hold.
He said U.S.-supported efforts in Venezuela had saved lives and prevented the spread of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Engel cited studies indicating that as many as 94% of Venezuelans are living in poverty and 7 million need humanitarian assistance.
“Over the years we have enjoyed a very firm collaboration and technical support from the U.S. government,” Dr. Carissa Etienne, who heads PAHO, said in remarks to journalists Tuesday. “This mutual collaboration between the U.S. and PAHO has stood the test of many, many years, and it is our hope that we can continue to work in this vein to insure that health and well-being come to the majority of people in the Americas.”
Trump two weeks ago halted funding to the Geneva-based WHO, arguing that it had mimicked Chinese assurances about the spread of coronavirus, wrongly opposed travel restrictions at the start of the outbreak and was slow to declare the outbreak a global pandemic.
PAHO is one of the few ways the U.S. is able to channel aid to Venezuela since it doesn’t recognize Maduro and has no functioning embassy in Caracas.