The WHO’s current funding model relies largely on voluntary donation payments by member countries and other donors, making its annual budget variable and precarious. Over the course of the pandemic, more donations poured in to lift the total budget over $8 billion, but many of those donations were pandemic-specific and cannot be used for long-term projects.
U.S. donations to the WHO declined by 25 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic despite most other member states increasing their funding in that time. Meanwhile, an HHS official said the Biden administration is hesitant to increase its funding to the WHO until it has a better understanding of the current funding mechanism.
The hesitancy over funding may stem from political reasons, according to the Post.
“The administration is trying to avoid having to face that politically, particularly when it’s coming up to midterm elections, and the WHO is not popular in the country,” Lawrence Gostin, director of WHO’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, told the Post.
