As the global public health crisis surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, the operations of the world’s premier global health organization have come into sharp focus. But this attention hasn’t always been positive. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently had all of its United States funding cut off following angry tweets from president Trump. There is certainly room to criticize the WHO in recent years, but how might this cut impact the global health response to the pandemic? This week, we’ll look into the operations of the WHO and how it could impact you?
Not to be confused with these guys.
But first, what is the WHO? It is essentially the public health arm of the United Nations. Founded in 1948, the organization’s mission is to promote access to healthcare, monitor public health risks, and respond to emerging crises. The organization is funded in large part by financial contributions from major world governments and private foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Though donors do not necessarily dictate the operations of the WHO, they can naturally have some influence on its operations by using these contributions as leverage. However, the WHO for the most part works to promote public health programs rather than national or corporate politics.
So why is the WHO so important? It has played a key role in solving many of the world’s biggest health problems of the past few decades. One of the biggest success stories of the WHO is its work in helping to eradicate the smallpox virus during the latter half of the 20th century. Similar such efforts have been underway for decades on eradicating diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and polio. More recently, the WHO helped coordinate the global response to other potential pandemic viruses such as the H1N1 Flu, Swine Flu, MERS, and SARS.
But the WHO is not without its share of problems. Like many international institutions, it is only as strong as the support it receives from the world’s most powerful nations. In recent years, the WHO has come under fire from the United States. This trend comes mostly from conservative politics which emphasizes what is given up by joining these organizations (which is practically nothing) rather than what is gained. But some of the most glaring problems with the WHO have been put into sharp focus during the pandemic crisis. For instance, the WHO has been very hesitant to criticize the Chinese government for its attempts to mislead the world during the initial outbreak.
But now, after a Twitter “argument” between the president and head of the WHO, the United States has cut all of its funding to the organization. This funding, which pales in comparison to most other international spending, was critical in helping coordinate a global response to the pandemic. Unfortunately, this move is completely counter-intuitive if the goal is to prevent further Chinese manipulation of the organization. It was difficult enough with the United States failing to nominate a representative to the WHO. Now, China is one of the largest contributors to the WHO, so the United States has ceded a large share of its influence over the group’s political dealings. An appropriate way to re-align the WHO’s behavior could be to put contingencies on how this money is spent, not withdraw it entirely. Once again, the United States has willfully given up its leverage to try to score cheap political points at home.
But petty national politics aside, this funding cut hinders the ability of the WHO to actually fight the virus. Vaccine research, educational outreach, large-scale testing, and contact tracing all require significant amounts of time and money to implement. These programs aren’t just going to developing countries to prevent the spread of the pandemic there (as if that wasn’t a good enough reason to support them). The global health programs of the WHO are some of the only international programs working to also track the spread of the virus here in the United States. With the American national response continuing to be disjointed and reactionary, the individual states and communities across the country are largely resigned to fend for themselves and develop a response.
A helpful poster by international nonprofit Alight. Donate at https://wearealight.org/.
There is no question that the WHO is overdue for some fundamental changes. But it will be much easier to reform the organization rather than attempt to destroy and rebuild it entirely. We can build a better WHO, but the United States must be at the table in order to do this. More than almost any other crisis in modern times, the pandemic is truly a global problem. We can't solve this problem and reopen the country if we only look inward on domestic solutions while ignoring the rest of the world. After all, ignoring what was going on in the rest of the world is part of how we got into this mess in the first place.