A Downsized World Health Organization Raises Concerns on the Shrinking Mandate For Global Health

Newsletter Edition #266 [The Files In-Depth]

Hi,

A painful transition in global health is underway, that has been caused by a financial crunch, a shift in politics, exacerbating operational urgency in a sector that has long been under-funded.

Sometimes though, a crisis can be put to a good use or on the other hand, be deployed to meet political objectives. It is still too early to say whether the current remaking of global health will end up for the better.

We explore some of these questions in this edition, where we discuss the on-going restructuring at World Health Organization.

This story may be updated subsequently when more details on the restructured leadership team at WHO will emerge over the coming days.

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Best,

Priti

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Illustration Credit: Amy Clarke, Chembe Collaborative

I. ANALYSIS

A Downsized World Health Organization Raises Concerns on the Shrinking Mandate For Global Health

By Priti Patnaik

Bianca Carvalho contributed to this story

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“… The sudden drop in income has left us with a large salary gap and no choice but to reduce the scale of our work and workforce..” This stark admission came from WHO’s Chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the backdrop of brutal and abrupt cuts in foreign aid across countries, risking rising rates of infectious diseases, threatening immunization drives and affecting normative work. A deepening financial crisis has caught the UN’s only technical agency unprepared and tragically underfunded, insiders say.

The institutional structure of World Health Organization will shrink by nearly half to 34 departments (from 76) Tedros, the Director General of WHO, told member states last week.

The organization is facing a salary gap of as much as US$ 650 million for the next two years 2026–27 – this is nearly 25% of current staffing costs, he said. (In addition, there is a hole of US $ 600 million in the current year.)

WHO is also facing a bigger gap in financing of nearly $1.8 billion in the next budgetary cycle. While this is not unusual for the chronically underfunded institution, the prevailing political climate makes fundraising more complicated, experts say.

The proposed base budget for 2026-27 stands at US $ 4.2 billion. Base budget is the largest component and the scope is set by WHO, covering and work done across all three strategic priorities as well as the enabling functions ­– by country offices, regional office and headquarters.