What Does the World Health Organization Do?
Introduction
The World Health Organization (WHO) is the UN agency charged with spearheading international public health efforts. Over its nearly seventy-five years, the WHO has logged both successes, such as eradicating smallpox, and perceived failures, such as its delayed response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
In response, the WHO has undertaken reforms to improve its ability to fight future epidemics and boost the health of the hundreds of millions of people still living in extreme poverty. However, the WHO is in an uphill battle to loosen its rigid bureaucracy and it faces an increasingly troublesome budget. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be another monumental challenge for the health agency, sparking fresh debate over its effectiveness.
Why was the WHO established?
Created in 1948 as part of the United Nations, the WHO has a broad mandate to guide and coordinate international health policy. Its primary activities include developing partnerships with other global health initiatives, conducting research, setting norms, providing technical support, and monitoring health trends around the world. Over the decades, the WHO’s remit has expanded from its original focus on women’s and children’s health, nutrition, sanitation, and fighting malaria and tuberculosis.
What does the WHO do?
Today, the WHO monitors and coordinates activities concerning many health-related issues, including genetically modified foods, climate change, tobacco and drug use, and road safety. The WHO is also an arbiter of norms and best practices. Since 1977, the organization has maintained a list of
essential medicines it encourages hospitals to stock; it has since made a similar list of diagnostic tests. The agency also provides guidance on priority medical devices, such as ventilators and X-ray and ultrasound machines.
Some of the WHO’s
most lauded successes include its child vaccination programs, which contributed to the eradication of smallpox in 1979 and a 99 percent reduction in polio infections in recent decades, and its leadership during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic. The agency has the exclusive authority to declare global health emergencies, which it has done several times since its members granted it the power in 2007. At present, the WHO’s work includes combating the COVID-19 pandemic and other emergencies, as well as promoting refugees’ health.
In its 2019 strategy, the WHO identified
three priorities [PDF] for its work over the next five years:
- providing health coverage to one billion more people;
- protecting one billion more people from health emergencies such as epidemics; and
- ensuring another one billion people enjoy better health and well-being, including protection from non-infectious diseases such as cancer.
The WHO’s strategic priorities are rooted in the United Nations’
Sustainable Development Goals, a set of seventeen objectives for ending poverty by 2030.
How is the WHO governed?
The WHO is headquartered in Geneva and has six regional and 150 country offices. It is controlled by delegates from its 194 member states, who vote on policy and elect the director general. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, previously Ethiopia’s foreign minister, was elected to a five-year term in 2017 and reelected in 2022. He is the
WHO’s first leader from Africa, and his election was the first time all WHO countries had an equal vote.
WHO delegates set the agency’s agenda and approve an aspirational budget each year at the World Health Assembly. The director general is responsible for raising the lion’s share of funds from donors.
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