The World Health Organization wants a 20% increase in mandatory membership dues ($120 million annually) to push its global pandemic agreement that critics warn will erode national sovereignty.
The search for more funding stems from the Trump Administration’s Day 1 executive action to withdraw the United States from the WHO therefore leaving the agency short half a billion in the salary budget.
The membership dues hike, approved for 2026 and 2027, comes as the WHO celebrates the adoption of its first-ever pandemic accord, passed this week at the 78th World Health Assembly in Geneva.
The agreement follows three years of negotiations sparked by what the agency calls “gaps and inequities” during COVID-19.
“The world is safer today thanks to the leadership, collaboration and commitment of our Member States to adopt the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement published on the WHO’s website May 20.
He claimed the deal was “a victory for public health, science and multilateral action.”
The agreement creates new global frameworks that include a Coordinating Financial Mechanism and a Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network, intended to control access to pandemic-related health products worldwide.
According to the WHO, pharmaceutical companies participating in the agreement will be expected to allocate “20 per cent of their real-time production” of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics to the WHO for global distribution during a pandemic.
The WHO insists the agreement respects national sovereignty but critics question whether indirect pressure via funding mechanisms and global supply chains could achieve the same effect without formal mandates.
Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis has been an outspoken critic of the agreement, saying it would “erode (Canada’s) national health sovereignty in times of emergency.”
The timing of the WHO’s budget increase request coincides with the departure of former member states such as Argentina and the United States.