Thank you for inviting me to present on behalf of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Our Panel was forthright on the need for WHO to be sustainably financed in order to ensure its effectiveness and independence.
In its main report, the Panel stated that the quality, timing, and clarity of the technical advice and direction WHO provides to the world are of the utmost importance. We said that programmes need to be staffed by high-quality experts who are supported by sound financial, organisational, and management systems.
We noted, however, that the precarious way in which WHO is financed has serious impacts on its capacity and is a major risk to the integrity and independence of its work. We’ve heard many Member States agree that a stronger WHO is essential to a more secure future. Making it stronger means funding it sustainably and enhancing its independence – and the two are linked.
Our Panel believes that WHO’s base programme needs to be fully funded through unearmarked resources. We proposed that Member State fees be increased to cover two-thirds of the budget for the base programme, and that an organized replenishment process should be held to raise the remainder of the budget. We said that the decision to do this should be taken at the World Health Assembly in 2022.
We are pleased that there is progress towards these goals, but we wanted to see the level of ambition set higher than it currently is. We acknowledge that much work and consultation has gone into this Working Group’s process to agree that Member States should increase their assessed contributions to fifty per cent of the base programme. However, the timeline proposed is slow when the need for WHO to perform at a high level across all aspects of global health is great, including in helping to beat back a continually evolving pandemic right now.
Yet a strengthened and more independent WHO is not only about unearmarked and sustainable funding. We know that many Member States would like to see reforms to WHO itself – including more accountability.
We said the same – and called specifically for a single seven-year term of office for the Director-General and the Regional Directors; to focus WHO’s mandate on normative, policy and technical guidance; to resource and equip WHO country offices sufficiently; and to prioritise the quality and performance of staff at every level.
These can all happen concurrently – and WHO Member States have the power to do this through resolutions at the 2022 World Health Assembly.
Let me also note that the Independent Panel put its recommendations forward as a package. A better funded, more independent, and focused WHO is one part, but others include putting in place elevated global leadership and oversight in the form of a Global Health Threats Council, global preparedness financing of at least $10 billion annually with the capacity to scale up to $100 billion for rapid response to a pandemic threat; building an end-to-end platform that treats pandemic tools as global public goods; and support for new legal instruments.
In the heat of the current crisis, the opportunity has to be seized for institutional and funding reforms which can help the world do better next time a pandemic threat emerges. None of us can foresee when that may be, but we must be ready. A novel pathogen isn’t waiting for international systems to be reset. Change is urgent.
Co-Chair Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and I recently released an accountability report titled “Losing Time”. It noted the inadequate progress to date on curbing the pandemic and progressing significant reforms. But there were some bright lights, and the area of reforming WHO financing is one of those. We can only encourage this Working Group to be as ambitious as possible and to recommend a rapid timetable for implementing reforms which will increase WHO’s capacities and independence.
Thank you.