The World Health Organization (WHO) was established in 1948 as a specialised agency of the United Nations (UN), leading worldwide health initiatives and projects where they are needed, both nationally and regionally. The current membership of the WHO comprises 194 countries. The UN health body also partners with numerous other international entities and non-profit organisations.
Its role spans promoting and guiding international health research, striving for universal health coverage, reinforcing emergency preparedness, and tackling non-communicable diseases. Over the decades, WHO has set globally accepted norms and standards in healthcare, and its research and approvals have been recognised as the benchmark for health-related policies and practices across the globe.
Funding: Assessed and Voluntary
WHO follows a biennial programme budget format. The document is finalised after member states approve a general programme of work. This budget outlines the organisation’s strategic direction and is drawn from a mix of assessed contributions, provided by member states, and voluntary contributions, coming from a variety of donors, including member states and other international and regional organisations.
Assessed contributions reflect around 20% of the budget says the organisation and are calculated as a percentage of a nation’s GDP, as decided by the UN General Assembly. These member state contributions are fully flexible, allowing WHO the freedom to allocate funds where needed.
Voluntary contributions, however, make up the lion’s share of WHO financing and usually come with donor-specified conditions. These funds are channelled from other UN organisations, international bodies, philanthropic foundations, industries, and member states in addition to their assessed contributions.
Since the 1970s, voluntary contributions have taken centre stage in WHO’s budget, ultimately surpassing mandatory contributions. Critics have argued that reliance on donor-driven projects risks diverting the organisation from its core agenda and strategic role as a UN global agency, as it cannot always direct donor funds to the most pressing global health needs.
Over time, the proportion of assessed contributions in WHO budget has steadily decreased. It slid from 46% in 1990 to 16% in the 2020–21 cycle, according to a WHO budgeting and planning report. In parallel, the share of voluntary contributions rose from 54% to 84% across roughly the same period. These figures remain similar in the 2024–25 budget, maintaining assessed contributions at approximately 16.8%.
Programme Budgets Through the Years
WHO’s budget has grown over time, as reflected by its programme budget documents: USD 3.96 billion in 2012–2013, USD 3.98 billion in 2014–2015, USD 4.34 billion in 2016–2017, USD 4.42 billion in 2018–2019, USD 5.84 billion in 2020–2021, and USD 6.73 billion in 2022–2023.
The current 2024–2025 budget stands at USD 6.83 billion, out of which USD 1.148 billion comes from assessed contributions. This represents 16.8% of the total 2024–25 programme budget, with the remaining amount expected to flow in from voluntary and other contributions.
From Voluntary to Assessed Contribution
In recent years, WHO has advanced a transformation agenda to improve resource mobilisation and to secure more predictable financing. Central to this plan is the target that, by 2030, half of the organisation’s base budget should derive from assessed contributions rather than from external voluntary sources. All member states have agreed to this aim, reflecting a collective desire to ensure WHO’s continued autonomy in setting its strategic priorities.
The United States: A Major Funder
The United States of America has historically been the largest contributor to WHO, both through assessed and voluntary means. Between 2012 and 2018, voluntary funding from the Unites States averaged around USD 254 million per year.
In the 2024–25 period, the assessed contribution from the United States is recorded at USD 260 million, alongside a voluntary contribution of USD 698 million, putting its share of WHO’s programme budget at 14% until November 2024.
Figures from previous budgets show the USA contributing USD 1.284 billion in total in 2022–23, equating to a 19% share, while Germany and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided USD 856 million and USD 830 million, respectively, in the same period. In 2020–21, the USA contributed USD 243 million through assessed funds and USD 461 million in voluntary amounts, which together represented 12% of that programme budget.
In 2022–23, the top ten contributors to WHO were led by the United States, Germany at USD 856 million, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at USD 830 million. Other major contributions included GAVI’s USD 481 million, the European Commission’s USD 468 million, the United Kingdom’s USD 396 million, Canada’s USD 204 million, Rotary International’s USD 177 million, Japan’s USD 167 million, and France’s USD 161 million.
Funding Suspension by the United States
In the recent past, there have been moments of tension between WHO and the United States government. On 14 April 2020, President Donald Trump announced the suspension of WHO funding, alleging that the organisation had mismanaged and covered up the spread of the coronavirus.
In 2021, the Biden Administration resumed funding. However, in January 2025, Donald Trump became President again and suspended the country’s WHO funding for the second time, with the US ultimately withdrawing from the UN health body.
Funding by the United States is important for the global health body, as reflected in the WHO’s comments after the withdrawal, “The World Health Organization regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization. WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing, and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go.”
Being the largest funder, both currently and historically, the withdrawal of the United States significantly impacts the operations of the global health agency as it aims to make assessed contributions a major funding source by 2030, ensuring greater financial autonomy to meet its core functional agenda. As a dominant global player, the United States’ efforts, along with WHO, in global health policy, emergency operations, activities in the areas of war and conflicts, pandemic preparedness following the COVID crisis, global vaccination, global actions towards equal nutrition, and universal health coverage, offer a wider functional platform on global health needs across countries and regions.
