Question- United States has recently curtailed the funding of WHO on its failure to play role in preventing spread of Coronavirus. On what rationale has President Trump curtailed the funding of WHO? What will such a cut have impact on future functioning of WHO?
Answer- Argument by Trump– The US President has threatened to freeze US funding to WHO for not working necessary steps to combat covid-19.He has raised allegations that the WHO has praised China for its transparency on the virus even though there has been reason to believe that more people died of covid-19 than the country’s official tally.
Funding of WHO– It is funded by large number of countries, philanthropic organizations, UN Organizations etc. According to WHO voluntary donation from member states (such as the US) contributes 35.41%, Assessed contributions are 15.66%, Philanthropic organisations account for 9.33% UN Organisations Contribute About 8.1%, the rest comes from myriad sources. The US contributes almost 15% of the WHO’s total funding and almost 31% of the member states donation, the largest chunk in both cases. India contributes 1% of the member states donation. Countries decide how much they pay and may also choose not to.
About WHO– The WHO is a specialized agency of the UN responsible for international public health. It was founded in 1948 and is headquartered at Geneva, Switzerland.
INDIA and the WHO- WHO has been working with the Ministry of Health and Family welfare and various state governments on preparedness and response measure for covid-19, including
- Surveillance and contact tracing
- Lab and research protocols
- Risk communications
- Hospital preparedness
- Training on infection prevention
- Control and cluster containment plan etc..
During G-20 summit, the PM of India underscored the need to strengthen and reform intergovernmental organizations of WHO.
Finally, Argument given by Trump get criticized by all the countries even China.
India says it will distract WHO’s focus on covid-19 right now it should focus on pandemic.
Finally,At this time also we are not ready to fight with any pandemic but in lack of funding for WHO the same will happen in future.
After declaring the coronaviruses as pandemic US started to blame World Health organization that it is working as “Chinacentric”
Reasons for cut the fundings of WHO by US president –
1)At first stage when coronaviruses are spreading that time many country banned international flights from China, but WHO opposed that decision.
2)On January there was a meeting in India where WHO’S official said that”there is no human to human transmission”.
3) WHO always admired about the containment process of coronavirus of China and even WHO denied that TAIWAN is a independent country.
4) when WHO declared coronavirus as pandemic it was so late.
Impact on function of WHO –
1) Many least developed country such as African countries are completely dependent on WHO’s provided medical equipment,funds, medicine e.t.c which may hamper to function properly.
2) WHO has been key partner of immunisation program such as polio,TB and neglected disease such as kala jar, leprosy and nutrition program across the world.This important function could be distorted.
3) WHO publishes many important report about health related which could be disturbed in future.
4) WHO is global platform that works as coordination among the countries, where every country can share their knowledge but if other country do the same thing as US has done then there will be no importance of such kind of organization.
Conclusion- Many country and organization have criticized such stern action of US, urguing that it is not proper time to judge unjust or fair.It is the time to co-operate each other so that the lethal coronavirus can be eradicated from the world.