WHO launches foundation to broaden donor base to individuals and companies

The World Health Organisation has launched a foundation to help it raise funds from individuals and companies, as the UN agency seeks to broaden its donor base.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the Geneva-based body, had announced the plan to set up a foundation last year. But the official launch comes as the WHO is facing mounting criticism and financial pressure amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and after its largest donor, the United States, threatened to permanently halt funding.

“An important part of WHO’s future success is broadening its donor base and increasing both the quantity and quality of funds at its disposal,” Tedros said on Wednesday.

“The creation of the WHO Foundation, as part of WHO’s transformation, is an important step towards this goal, and towards achieving our mission to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable.”

The foundation aims to raise US$1 billion in the next three to four years to help the WHO achieve its “triple billion” goals by 2023: protecting 1 billion people from health emergencies; extending universal health coverage to 1 billion people; and assuring healthy lives and well-being for 1 billion people.

“We are terribly ambitious,” said Thomas Zeltner, founder of the WHO Foundation and Switzerland’s former health secretary.

He said preparations to set up the foundation, an independent legal entity, began 18 months ago, and the launch was brought forward because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It has been accelerated a little bit. We wanted to launch it maybe in summer or in early fall of this year, but then there was this need of additional money [for the Covid-19 response],” Zeltner said.

But he said the timing of the launch had nothing to do with the US threat to cut funding.

“It is actually a pure coincidence – we planned for this foundation and the rationale behind it for a long time,” Zeltner said. “The launching was a little bit faster only because of Covid-19, and not for any political question.”

The WHO had a budget of US$4.8 billion for 2018-19, and has, up until now, received donations only from member states and large charity organisations.

In the fourth quarter last year, its top three donors were the US government, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, a vaccine alliance founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other donors. They contributed around 15 per cent, 12 per cent and 8 per cent of the global health body’s funding, respectively.

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President Donald Trump temporarily suspended US funding in April for 60 days, and has criticised the WHO over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak and accused it of siding with Beijing.

China later that month donated another US$30 million to the WHO, its second contribution during the pandemic after it announced an extra US$20 million in March. The US gave the WHO more than US$400 million, or 15 per cent of its budget, in 2019. China donated about US$86 million in the same year.

Last week, Trump threatened to permanently cut off funds if the agency did not “commit to major substantive improvements” in the next month.

Zeltner said the WHO Foundation would not interact or compete with traditional donors like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, but it would focus on companies and individuals that could not directly donate before.

The foundation would work with local partners in different countries and was liaising with nations, including China, on tax exemption arrangements, he said.

It would in the coming weeks or months “absorb” the Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund set up by the WHO in March to help fund the coronavirus fight, he said. That fund has raised US$240 million so far.

The WHO will sign a memorandum of understanding with the WHO Foundation, which will operate independently. Between 70 and 80 per cent of the funds raised by the foundation will go directly to the WHO, and the rest will be used for grant-making activities by partners.