Termination of funding from the United States is unlikely to cause irreparable damage to the World Health Organization (WHO), said Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin in an interview.
Earlier in April, US President Donald Trump announced the suspension of WHO funding. The Trump administration accuses the organization of not responding quickly to the outbreak of the coronavirus COVID-19. At the same time, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not rule out that Washington would never restore the suspended funding of WHO.
“At this stage, assessing the losses of the World Health Organization that the decision of the US administration will entail is quite difficult. Of course, the organization will suffer, but it is unlikely that its budget will be irreparably damaged”, – Pankin said.
The deputy minister noted that, apparently, the declared suspension of payments will affect voluntary contributions from the US government. According to him, in 2018-2019, such contributions accounted for about 656 million dollars, or 15% of the total WHO funding for that period.
“With regard to assessed contributions (for the year 2020, such a contribution by the United States is about $ 120 million, or 22% of all mandatory income), according to the organization’s charter, termination of their payments will result in deprivation of the right to vote in the World Health Assembly, the highest body of WHO decisions. The United States did not declare withdrawal from the Organization, however, it is clearly not in their interests to lose influence in it”, – the deputy foreign minister said.
Pankin recalled that the Americans remain the main non-payers – their debt to WHO is about $ 200 million, which is already enough to apply “penalties”.
“Obviously, more specifics regarding Washington’s position should be expected during the upcoming session of the Assembly on May 18”, – he concluded.
The World Health Assembly (WHA) will be held in Geneva in an online format and will begin on May 18.
The World Health Organization on March 11 announced an outbreak of a new coronavirus infection COVID-19 with a pandemic. According to the latest WHO data, more than 3.3 million cases of infection have been recorded in the world, about 240 thousand people have died.