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Friday, 13 December 2021

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the 5th meeting of the Member State Working Group on Sustainable Finance

Thank you, Björn.

The Right Honourable Helen Clark,

The Right Honourable Gordon Brown,

Your Excellency Minister Tharman,

Your Excellency Elhadj Es Sy,

Mr Christof Maetze,

Dr Felicity Harvey,

Honourable Ministers, Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,

Let me begin by thanking our Working Group Chair, each of the Bureau members and all Member States for the hard work that you have already put into this Working Group on Sustainable Finance.

But now, as you meet for the fifth time, I wanted to reflect on the importance of your task.

Last week, as a measure of that importance, I wrote to the Heads of Government of all Member States ahead of this meeting.

In my letter, I referred to the Special Session of the World Health Assembly two weeks ago, which adopted a decision that set a course towards a new convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

The adoption of this decision was cause for celebration, and cause for hope, but it is only one element of building our collective global security to combat future health threats, learning from the lessons of this pandemic.

As so many Member States at the Assembly emphasized, WHO is itself a vital pillar in that enhanced global health security.

As you have heard me say many times, the world needs a strengthened, empowered and sustainably financed WHO, at the centre of the global health architecture.

But over several decades, it has been progressively weakened by a debilitating imbalance between assessed contributions, and voluntary, earmarked contributions.

This imbalance distorts our budget and constrains our ability to deliver the high-quality normative and technical work that our Member States expect of us.

It impacts our ability to do long-term programming and to attract and retain the world-class talent we need to do our life-saving work.

More than 25% of WHO’s workforce are on temporary contracts or consultancies.

With over 2000 awards with different reporting requirements, the constant fundraising diverts attention and resources away from that work.

Redressing this imbalance is of vital importance if WHO is to be the independent and authoritative global health leader the world needs it to be.

It’s not just about the money, it’s about WHO’s independence.

Every expert and review panel has pointed to the widening mismatch between the expectations of WHO and its resources.

I am delighted that you will be hearing directly from many of those experts this morning – and I thank them for their time to be with us today and for their support for WHO.

I would particularly like to thank Helen and Ellen and the entire Independent Panel for their work and recommendations.

They have urged that COVID-19 must be the catalyst to rectify it. As they ask, if not now, then when?

You, WHO’s Member States, have an opportunity to build on the historic momentum that you created at the Special Session of the World Health Assembly.

After months of detailed discussions, you have reconvened to consider your final report to the Executive Board in January.

The draft report before you includes recommendations that will improve WHO’s effectiveness, financial governance and impact.

I want to assure you that these are all challenges which the Secretariat embraces and will respond to with energy and commitment.

In particular, the recommendation for an increase in assessed contributions to 50% of the base programme budget will be a game changer for WHO.

During this meeting, you will hear from WHO Regional Directors and Country representatives about the difference it would make to the way we serve you, our Member States.

Of course, I understand that the pandemic has brought an economic and financial burden to most of you.

The Working Group has been mindful of this, which is why the draft report includes a recommendation that any increase in assessed contributions would not take effect before 2024 and would be stepwise until 2028/2029.

With 194 Member States and 152 country offices, WHO has unique expertise, a unique global mandate, unique global reach and unique global legitimacy.

Dear Colleagues, the status quo will not suffice.

I therefore respectfully ask you to support these historic proposals to set the financing of WHO on a new, sustainable path into the future.

I wish you a successful meeting and look forward to your report.

I thank you.

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More information on Working Group on Sustainable Financing

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