By Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) -The World Well being Group (WHO) is proposing to cut back employees numbers and the size of its work because it slashes its finances by simply over one fifth as a result of impression of U.S. funding cuts, in line with an inner memo seen by Reuters.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the WHO upon taking workplace in January, saying the worldwide well being company had mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and different worldwide well being crises. The U.S. is by far the U.N. well being company’s largest monetary backer, contributing round 18% of its general funding.
“America’ announcement, mixed with latest reductions in official improvement help by some nations to fund elevated defence spending, has made our scenario far more acute”, acknowledged the WHO memo, which was dated March 28 and signed by WHO’s Director-Basic Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The WHO didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The U.S. withdrawal has exacerbated a funding disaster resulting from member states lowering their improvement spending. Confronted with an revenue hole of practically $600 million this yr, the WHO has proposed to slash its finances for 2026-27 by 21% from US$5.3 billion to US$4.2 billion, in line with the memo.
In February, the WHO’s govt board had initially diminished the proposed finances for 2026-27 from US$5.3 billion to US$4.9 billion, in line with the word.
“Regardless of our greatest efforts, we are actually on the level the place we have now no alternative however to cut back the size of our work and workforce,” the memo stated.
The WHO will cut back jobs at senior management degree at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, although all ranges and areas will likely be affected, the memo added. It is going to resolve on how you can prioritize its work and assets by the top of April.
WHO paperwork present the U.N. company has over 1 / 4 of its 9,473 employees in Geneva.
An inner memo from March 10, which was additionally seen by Reuters, stated the World Well being Group had begun fixing priorities and introduced a one-year restrict on employees contracts.
The memo stated that employees had been working to safe extra funding from nations, non-public donors and philanthropists.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Enhancing by Aidan Lewis)
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