Here¡¯s How World Health Organization Gets Its Funding

US President Donald Trump has started a debate over the impartiality of the World Health Organisation (WHO) accusing them of being too China-centric and hence, failing to stop novel coronavirus pandemic. Trump went on to stop the US funding to the WHO.

AFP

The US has been the biggest contributor to the World Health Organisation wallet, which has a budget of $ 6.2 billion. The WHO is funded by its members and other organisations.

AFP

According to the website of WHO, the US with 14.67 per cent of total contribution is the largest funding source for the United Nations health agency. The next contributors would be the big Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with 9.76 per cent and GAVI Alliance at 8.39 per cent. This Gavi Alliance is Geneva based public private partnership organisation to which Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives a good contribution.

Next up, The UK with 7.78 per cent and Germany with 5. 68 per cent are the only other country after the United States to make over 5 per cent of the total contribution to the WHO.

The UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is the other one which makes over 5 per cent of the total contribution. Next is the World Bank with 3.42 per cent, the Rotary International with 3.3 per cent and the European Commission with 3.3 per cent and Japan stands at 2.7 per cent are among the others who make the major contribution to WHO finances.

China, which is right now the center of the current epidemic contributes only 0.21 per cent of the total money flowing into global healthcare. Whereas, India contributes twice as much to WHO with 0.48 per cent and much closer with France which stands at 0.5 per cent. However, it is interesting to see that even Pakistan contributes 0.36 per cent to the World Health Organisation which is more than China.

There are different ways in which the WHO gets its fund. Voluntary contributions are the biggest category of funding that the WHO receives, from almost 80 per cent of all contributions. The voluntary contributions which are made by the member states currently WHO has 194 and NGOs. These funds come in two different categories- core voluntary contributions and specified voluntary contributions.

Core contributions give the WHO flexibility to use the money according to its need and necessities. Specified contributions are subjected only to a specified purpose or cause.

Another category of funding is assessed contributions. These can be considered as membership fees. Being a member of the World Health Organisation doesn¡¯t come free. The WHO assesses fees from each member country depending on its financial health and population. For the bigger part The United States here contributes almost 15 per cent of the total contribution and the second largest comes from the UK. 17 per cent of the total contribution is of the assessed contribution or WHO memberships fee accounts.

The pandemic Influenza preparedness - PIP contributions make up about 3 per cent of total WHO funds. The stated goal made in 2011 was "to improve and strengthen the sharing of influenza viruses with human pandemic potential".