Executive Overview
Setting the scene and progress towards the 3 billion targets and SDGs.
WHO is marking its 75th anniversary this year, with its 194 Member States and partners, by calling for a renewed drive for health equity. The past seven and a half decades have seen extraordinary progress in protecting people from diseases, health risks and harms. However, as this report shows, further progress is needed to achieve the triple billion targets towards attaining the health-related Sustainable Development Goals and meeting other health challenges, such as mental health, antimicrobial resistance and climate change.
- Improved access to quality essential health services irrespective of gender, age or disability status
- Countries enabled to provide high-quality, people-centred health services, based on primary health care strategies and comprehensive essential service packages
Countries prepared for health emergencies
Urgent need to address gaps in national health emergency preparedness capacity highlighted by COVID-19 pandemic, calls for evolving financing and monitoring frameworks.
Despite substantive progress in health emergency preparedness and the implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005) monitoring and evaluation framework, there is an urgent need to better understand the gaps and weaknesses in the preparedness of national systems, including in the areas of governance, preparedness and dynamic readiness capacities at subnational and national levels. There is also an urgent need to translate that knowledge into action to better protect countries and communities against the impact of future public health crises.
The message from the COVID-19 pandemic is clear: countries are not prepared for health emergencies and the way the world funds and measures preparedness must evolve. Ultimately, breaking the cycle of panic and subsequent neglect that has previously characterized the world’s approach to health emergencies means addressing national and subnational gaps in preparedness capacity. To achieve this, the world must change the way it finances preparedness in order for the world to be protected from the next pandemic and other health emergency threats.
PROGRAMME BUDGET FUNDING AND UTILIZATION
WHO’s biennial Programme budget is based on the principles of transparency, accountability and providing value for money
The Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA75.5 in May 2022, revising the approved base programmes segment of the Programme budget 2022-2023 to a total of US$ 6.726 billion. By the end of the first year, the total Programme budget has a good level of financing (US$ 8.3 billion), including projections, which exceeded the total approved. The good level of financing is explained by two event-driven budget segments: emergency operations and appeals, and polio eradication, the financing for which has needed to exceed the amounts established in the Programme budget in order to keep step with operational needs.
