Sustainable Financing
The polio eradication programme has historically accounted for approximately 20% of the World Health Organization’s budget, and provides critical technical and operational capacity in WHO’s African, Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asia Regions, where the programme has set up a large infrastructure.
Sustainable financing from domestic and external sources is essential to sustain the critical components of this infrastructure, to advance primary healthcare towards universal health coverage and to strengthen global health security.
The Strategic Action Plan on Polio Transition (2018 – 2023) sets out why sustainable financing is central to maintaining essential health functions. Sustained political and financial commitment from Member States to support these functions represents a sound investment for the future, to keep the world polio-free and to make progress on key health targets and agendas, including strengthening emergency preparedness and response and achieving the goals of the Immunization Agenda 2030.
In most countries, essential functions previously managed and funded through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) need to be supported by other WHO programmes, until national governments are fully ready to integrate these functions into their national health systems.
WHO's programme budget 2022 – 2023
The costs for sustaining essential functions during the polio transition process are included in the base segment of WHO’s programme budget 2022 – 2023. Integrating these functions into WHO’s broader work on immunization, disease surveillance, outbreak preparedness and response represents a significant step forward in transition and for future sustainability.
Sustaining the essential functions
Sustainable financing for the essential functions is a three-level responsibility within the WHO, and polio transition funding needs are aligned with the vision and priorities of the Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019 – 2023.
Sustaining essential functions in the long term depends on mobilizing predictable resources, especially at the country level. In some priority countries for polio transition, such as India, the national government has already taken over core capacities and essential functions, incorporating these costs into the domestic budget. WHO is continuing to advocate the use of domestic resources as the most feasible long-term strategy to sustain health systems capacity.