How funding cuts shook up the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is responding to health and humanitarian crises amid major funding constraints. Saeed M. M. T. Jaras / AFP

Delegates gathering in Geneva this week face difficult decisions over the future of global health cooperation after sweeping donor funding cuts upended programmes worldwide.  

At the World Health Assembly, member states must decide how much money and authority to give the World Health Organization (WHO) as it responds to health and humanitarian crises amid major funding constraints.

“From conflicts to economic crises to climate change and aid cuts, we live in difficult, dangerous and divisive times,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told delegates on Monday, noting the agency itself had “been through a difficult period as a result of sudden and steep cuts to our funding”.

The world is off track to meet the 2030 health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set for 2030. The WHO estimates that 4.6 billion people still lack access to essential health services while 2.1 billion face financial hardship due to health costs. The world is projected to face a shortage of 11 million health workers by 2030.

Global health funding has been under growing pressure since the Covid-19 pandemic, as donor governments shifted spending priorities and reduced overseas aid budgets. The squeeze intensified in 2025 after the United States – historically the WHO’s largest donor – moved to withdraw from the agency and froze much of its foreign aid spending. The US has yet to pay its arrears to the WHO.

The US decision created an immediate funding gap of roughly $600 million (CHF470 million) through the end of 2025 and exposed a deeper structural vulnerability because Washington accounted for nearly a fifth of the agency’s budget. The WHO was forced to reduce its planned 2026-2027 budget by about 20%, although officials say broader financial reforms helped cushion the shock. 

Nonetheless, US cuts to global health funding, which have been mimicked by major European donors, have forced the WHO to slash jobs and “hyper-prioritise” programmes, disrupting emergency response efforts and services from tuberculosis treatment to maternal care. These five graphics capture the bite of the cuts and how they affect global health and funding.

1. The funding shock

The US was the biggest donor of the WHO. It accounted for just over a third of WHO’s health emergency funding (34% for the 2024-2025 period), financed about half of the tuberculosis programmes and gave 75% of funding for HIV and sexually transmitted disease programmes. Other governments have also scaled back support.

The WHO initially projected a $1.79 billion funding gap for its 2026-2027 budget. The shortfall has since been reduced to $1.05 billion following a significant reduction in the organisation’s global workforce.

2. As traditional donors reduce aid, philanthropy gains influence

Reduced support from major donors including Germany and the UK have deepened financial pressure on the WHO and major disease programmes.

•  The UKExternal link reduced its pledge to the Global Fund to Fights Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 15% to £850 million (CHF895 million) for 2026-2028. It also ended direct funding for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, deciding instead to channel support through the WHO and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.
• Germany’s 2025 budgetExternal link cut humanitarian assistance by €1.3 billion (CHF1.2 billion), a 47% reduction compared to 2024 levels. It also slashed contributions to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative by 19%.
• In response to the US withdrawal, China committed to giving an additional $500 million between 2025 and 2030 to help WHO offset its financial difficulties.
• Switzerland, which hosts the WHO, pledged an additional $80 million for 2025-2028.

“We project that for the current biennium [two-year period], 90% of the base budget is funded,” Ghebreyesus told delegates on Monday. “However, we recognise that in the current environment, the remaining 10% will not be easy to mobilise.” 

The WHO does not rely only on countries for its fundings. A 2025 BMJ Global Health StudyExternal link found that the Gates Foundation contributed about $5.5 billion to the WHO between 2000 and 2024, accounting for nearly 10% of the body’s total income and making it the second-largest donor after the United States. The US funding cuts make the foundation the largest single funder of the WHO.

3. Gap between needs and funding 

The WHO has spent more than it received each year as funding declined over the past three years. Its 2025 financial statements show the agency avoided a major budget crisis through deep spending cuts and relying on strong investment income after the US funding freeze. In 2025, programme delivery – the implementation of health programmes and services funded through the WHO budget – totalled $3.429 billion, a decrease of $334 million compared with 2024. 

4. Health impacts of cuts 

Health officials say the cuts are forcing WHO and partners to ration aid and scale back emergency health operations worldwide. In 2025, funding reductions affected 5,687 health facilities across 20 crisis-affected countries and territories, according to the global health agency. 

The WHO, which works with over 1,500 partners across the globe, highlights the following examples of how funding cuts impact health: 

• Health access Some 2,038 health facilities that suspended operations in 2025, reducing healthcare access for 53.3 million people. That represents 65% of the 81.4 million people originally targeted for humanitarian health assistance in 2025.  

• Women’s health Cuts to programmes supported by the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) left more than 2.2 million women without critical health services in Afghanistan, Sudan and Yemen. Funding losses forced the cancellation of 100,000 post-rape kits for the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Some 60% of women’s organisations around the globe have scaled back their operations.  

• Tuberculosis The WHO warns that long-term cuts to international donorExternal link funding could result in up to two million additional deaths and ten million people falling ill with TB between 2025 and 2035. 

• Mental health Some 750,000 people lost access to mental health services across 32 countries in 2025. 

• Child nutrition The WHO reports that declining development aid and weaker nutrition monitoring are limiting countries’ ability to track and respond to child nutrition. A 2025 report by the Global Nutrition Cluster found the number of stunted children is still rising in Africa. Stunting is caused by chronic undernutrition and repeated illness in early childhood. 

5. Shrinking workforce

The World Health Organization projects its workforceExternal link will shrink from 9,401 staff in January 2025 to 7,360 by June 2026, a 22% reduction. In a January 2026 human resources update, the WHO said it faced the abolition of 1,282 posts despite efforts to limit cuts through attrition and voluntary early retirement. The steepest reductions are projected at headquarters in Geneva and Global Shared Services, where staffing is expected to fall 28%, while the African and European regions are projected to shrink by 25% and 24% respectively. 

Edited by Virginie Mangin/ts