It’s amazing what one can do when one tries.

Since President Trump’s announcement that the United States is withdrawing all its funding from the World Health Organization, the WHO spin machine has been working overtime to improve its image. 

On social media, the WHO released a message on X (formerly Twitter) which ‘debunked’ the idea that the agency has a “massive” budget and that the WHO is “spending all its money on administration and bureaucracy”. 

Nothing could be further from the truth, complains the WHO. Their budget is less than that of the biggest hospital they could find in New York! As for the claim about the outlay on admin and red tape, the tweet reminded everyone that the WHO spends more on infectious diseases and vaccines. 

Exactly how much more, it didn’t say. 

Besides, recently, Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been busily announcing a range of initiatives to save money on administration to compensate for the loss of all those American dollars. 

Firstly, the WHO intends to freeze hiring and install staff budget cuts with an offer of voluntary early retirement to eligible employees aged over 55. It has also begun “prioritization” work to cut down on staff costs to “transfer funding and staffing and commitment at country level away from HQ.” 

A very good idea considering the “U.N. agency has over a quarter of its 9,473 staff based in its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland which is one of the most expensive cities in the world.”
How could the WHO allow such waste and expensive centralization to occur in the first place, one may ask. The answer could well lie in a recent report at Health Policy Watch.

“The number of WHO’s top-ranked directors (D2), the highest level of staff before the Director General’s senior leadership team, has nearly doubled since Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took office, with 75 people holding D2 positions in July 2024 in comparison to only 39 in July 2017.”

What a shocker. 

“Most of the new D2 positions are at WHO’s Geneva Headquarters, the costliest location of the global agency, where the number of senior directors increased from 29 in 2017 to 46 as of July 2024.”

How kind of him to save some of the taxpayer money which he had already committed to spend. Inspiring leadership, I think you would agree.