WHO Launches $1 Billion Appeal Amid Funding Shortfalls and Widening Gaps in Healthcare Access

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 6 2026 – On February 3, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched its 2026 global appeal to help millions of people living in protracted conflicts and humanitarian crises access lifesaving healthcare. Following a trend of sharply declining international funding, the agency warns that it is becoming increasingly difficult to respond to emerging health threats, including pandemics and drug-resistant infections.

According to figures from the United Nations (UN), roughly a quarter of a billion people are currently living through humanitarian crises that threaten their access to healthcare and shelter, even as global defense spending has surpassed USD 2.5 trillion annually. Meanwhile, WHO estimates that approximately 4.6 billion people lack access to essential health services and 2.1 billion face significant financial strain from rising health costs.

These disparities are expected to worsen in the coming years, as the world is projected to face a shortage of 11 million healthcare workers by 2030—more than half of whom are nurses. Seeking nearly USD 1 billion to support civilians across 36 emergency settings—14 of which are classified as extremely severe—WHO aims to protect and support millions of people living in the world’s most fragile crisis settings.

“This appeal is a call to stand with people living through conflict, displacement and disaster – to give them not just services, but the confidence that the world has not turned its back on them,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “It is not charity. It is a strategic investment in health and security. In fact, access to health care restores dignity, stabilizes communities and offers a pathway toward recovery.”

Since its founding in 1948, WHO has served as a critical lifeline for crisis-affected populations—promoting universal health coverage, coordinating international responses to health emergencies, and tracking emerging health threats and progress worldwide. In 2025 alone, WHO and its partners provided emergency health services to approximately 30 million people, delivering vaccinations to 5.3 million children, facilitating 53 million health consultations, supporting more than 8,000 health facilities, and deploying 1,370 mobile clinics.

“In today’s most complex emergencies, WHO remains indispensable – protecting health, upholding international humanitarian law, and ensuring life-saving care reaches people in places where few others can operate,” said Marita Sørheim-Rensvik, Deputy Permanent Representative of Norway to the UN Office at Geneva. “From safeguarding access to sexual and reproductive health and rights to supporting frontline health workers under immense strain, WHO’s role is vital.”

The 2026 appeal follows a year in which humanitarian financing fell below 2016 levels, forcing WHO and its partners to reach only one-third of the 81 million people originally targeted for health assistance. Additionally, this comes after the United States exit from WHO on January 22, which is estimated to reduce the agency’s budget for 2026 and 2027 from USD 5.3 billion to USD 4.2 billion.

Ghebreyesus addressed WHO’s Executive Board in Geneva on February 2, warning of the far-reaching consequences expected after last year’s steep funding cuts, describing 2025 as one of the organization’s “most difficult years” in its history. “Sudden and severe cuts to bilateral aid have also caused huge disruptions to health systems and services in many countries,” he said.

Ghebreyesus also noted that the agency narrowly avoided a far more severe financial collapse due to a host of member states agreeing to raise mandatory assessed contributions. This would reduce WHO’s dependence on voluntary designated funding. These reforms have enabled WHO to mobilize roughly 85 percent of its core budget for 2026-2027, though Ghebreyesus warned that the remaining gap will be “hard to mobilize” in today’s strained financial environment. He cautioned that “pockets of poverty” remain across critically underfunded areas, including emergency preparedness, antimicrobial resistance, and climate resilience.

Ghebreyesus also warned noted that the funding crisis has exposed deeper challenges for global health governance, especially among low and middle-income countries that struggle to maintain access to essential services. He stressed that the crisis presents a crucial opportunity for transformation, noting that a “leaner” WHO can become more focused on its core mission and mandate within the broader UN80 reform initiative. “This means sharpening our focus on our core mandate and comparative advantage, doing what we do best – supporting countries through our normative and technical work – and leaving to others what they do best,” he added.

As a result of shrinking global funding, WHO says that it and its partners have been “forced to make difficult choices” about which operations to sustain going forward. The agency stated its intentions to concentrate solely on the most critical, high-impact interventions–such as keeping essential health facilities running, delivering emergency medical supplies and trauma care, restoring immunization efforts, ensuring access to reproductive, maternal, and child health services, and preventing and responding to disease outbreaks.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is working with health authorities in South Sudan and partners to scale up cholera prevention efforts, including a vaccination campaign. Credit:WHO/South Sudan

“In 2026, WHO is adapting its emergency response again. We are applying the discipline of emergency medicine: focusing first on actions that save lives,” said Ghebreyesus. “We are placing greater emphasis on country leadership and local partnerships. We are concentrating on areas where WHO adds the greatest value and reducing duplication so that every dollar has maximum impact.”

In 2026, WHO will prioritize its emergency health response in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Afghanistan, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, and Myanmar, while also addressing ongoing outbreaks of cholera and mpox. As the lead agency for health coordination in humanitarian crises, WHO works with more than 1,500 partners across 24 emergency settings worldwide to ensure that national authorities and local organizations remain at the center of emergency response efforts.

Additionally, WHO’s strategy going forward places strong emphasis on helping countries reduce reliance on external aid and build long-term financial self-sufficiency. A key element of this approach is domestic resource mobilization, including the introduction of higher health taxes on harmful products such as tobacco, sugary beverages, and alcohol.

In recent months, WHO has made important progress in strengthening global responses to emerging health threats, even as antimicrobial resistance continues to escalate—with one in six bacterial infections worldwide now resistant to antibiotics. The agency has also expanded its disease surveillance capabilities, relying on AI-powered epidemic intelligence tools to help countries detect and contain hundreds of outbreaks before they evolve into major crises. WHO’s work has also been reinforced by last year’s adoption of the Pandemic Agreement and amended International Health Regulations (IHR), which aim to bolster global preparedness in the post-COVID-19 era.

“The pandemic taught all of us many lessons – especially that global threats demand a global response,” said Ghebreyesus. “Solidarity is the best immunity.” He emphasized that the future effectiveness of WHO hinges on predictable, sustained funding:“This is your WHO. Its strength is your unity. Its future is your choice.”

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