On January 21, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). He cited long standing grievances over funding imbalances as his main reason. He argued that that the United States has been paying far more than its fair share while giving leverage to countries like China to get a free pass.
The order has tickled the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to condemn the withdraw of financial support from the world health body saying the move will have devastating consequences for Americans, global health and the communities they have been serving. This decision, which gives a one-year notice before taking effect, will severely undermine the WHO’s capacity to carry out its critical mission and will cost lives.
It should be remembered that WHO was founded as a global health body in 1948 in the aftermath of the Second World War as part of the United Nations with several global health initiatives worldwide. From combating malaria and tuberculosis to improving women’s and children’s health, nutrition, and sanitation, coordinating international health policy, prevention as well as disease eradication across the globe.
Today, the organization serves as a vital hub for research, technical support, health trend monitoring, addressing some of the world’s most pressing health challenges including sexual as well as reproductive health and rights. As an entity, the organization has been surviving on hand outs and contributions from member countries including the United States of America.
As the largest single contributor to the WHO, the United States has been providing and will continue providing for the next one year approximately 10-18% of the organization’s funding, with the current two-year budget for 2024-2025 set at $6.8 billion. That means the withdrawal of U.S. funding will create an unprecedented financial shortfall, threatening essential health programs, partnerships and global public health.
Other than the claim that the United States has been paying far more than its fair share, what could be the other underlying reasons for Trump’s sentimental reaction pitting America’s exit as his number one goal. What could be the secret that influenced his decision aware of the impact it will have on the organization and its ability to perform its core functions?
Many have argued that the World Health Organization has turned itself into dealers having failed to prevent diseases such as covid19 that almost turned the world upside down. The entity has been blamed for conniving with pharmaceutical industries to disseminate vaccines that serve a different purposes other than those for which they were manufactured.
It has been said that many of the entities and or individuals agitating for small populations were behind the several vaccination programs pioneered by the health body. What is mind boggling is how a person or an entity pushing for small world population can turn around to inject money into senseless vaccination programmes intended to preserve and sustain life.
Others have argued that Trump believes the World health organization worked with other unscrupulous individuals and entities to frustrate his 2020 bid for a second straight term and instead supported his rival Joe Biden to win the hotly contested election. It is thought the reaction was a revenge mission intended to settle personal scores.
Another school of thought believes Trump’s reaction is intended to diffuse the organization that has been taken over and infiltrated by advocates of LGBTQI+ agenda through IPPF which he hates with a passion. His statement that there will only be two genders thus male and female during his term speaks volumes of what lies beneath the heard.
One of the justifications for exiting was that China was given a free pass while America contributes a lot of money every year. In his wisdom, the mismanagement of the corona virus could have had an impact on his failure to win a second term and had to wait for another four years for a sabbatical return despite having spent a lot of money only to lose.
What is not clear is whether or not exiting the health body is the best solution to sort out its shortcomings. It is also not clear whether or not Trump has an alternative plan of setting up a new global public health body. It is on record that during his first term as President, Trump actually suspended the health body for about 3 months accusing them of being incompetent having failed to deal with the corona virus on the onset and handling China with glove hands.
As for Uganda, Trump executive order spells doom for us. It looks like all our immunization and vaccination plan are hinged on free medical hand outs provided by the world health body. Imagine we have been struggling to deal with pandemics, epidemics and immunisable diseases, how about now that World Health organization has to rethink its priorities.
Where does this leave the Health Workforce Investment Charter to which American has been supporting to alleviate shortages of health workers, facilitating training programs and improved labour standards in Uganda? This in effect means that the withdrawal of American funding could undermine efforts to expand our health workforce, leaving many of our facilities ill-equipped to handle health crises and routine care needs.
The American defunding also comes against a back drop of the digital health initiatives which was highly anticipated to be a game changer. Their funding had improved vaccination tracking and health data management and reaching underserved populations deep in the remote areas of the country. These programs could be dealt a devastating blow leaving millions of children at risk of preventable diseases or lead to their resurgence.
As if that is not enough, their partnership under the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) had strengthened preparedness for pandemics and other health threats in the country. The withdrawal risks eroding these efforts, leaving the country less prepared to detect and respond to emerging health crises like it was during the Ebola outbreak, nodding disease, Marburg and now Mpox.
That is partly the reasons why organizations like the IDI and CDC are incomplete without the solid American-World Health Organization partnership. The departure of American from the partnership will certainly lead to their collapse due funding shortfalls which cannot be sustained by our government with distorted budgeting priorities. To sustain an operational sector under the current circumstances would mean diverting resources from other critical sectors like education and infrastructure and signals a retreat from multilateralism in global health.
Thus, defunding WHO is a direct attack on the health and well-being of Ugandans who government pays no or little attention to the health sector in the face of emerging disease outbreaks. Trump’s rushed decision is obviously sentimental, untimely and harsh given that it has come before the expansion of the Global Gag Rule which adds further insult to injury.
We can only hope that the Trump Administration revisits its combative position that could soon isolate developing countries and leave them as breeding ground for diseases while exposing its people to great danger. The world needs a thriving and a collective health body in the era of sophisticated pandemics and so far the World Health organization has done a commendable job.
Wadada Rogers is a commentator on political, legal and social issues. wadroger@yahoo.ca
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