GENEVA: The head of the World Health Organisation said on Monday that the dramatic cuts of 2025 as the United States headed for the exit created the chance to forge a leaner, re-focused WHO.

Washington, traditionally the UN health agency’s biggest donor, has slashed foreign aid spending under President Donald Trump, who on his first day back in office in January 2025 handed the WHO his country’s one-year withdrawal notice.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the agency’s annual executive board meeting that 2025 was “undeniably one of the most difficult years in our organisation’s history”, with many donors tightening their belts. “Significant cuts to our funding left us with no choice but to reduce the size of our workforce,” he said.

Last week, he said 1,241 posts had gone, while 1,162 staff had left or would be leaving through retirement, voluntary early retirement or moving elsewhere.

Tedros said the WHO’s remodelling was all but finalised.

“We have now largely completed the prioritisation and realignment. We have reached a position of stability and we are moving forward,” he insisted.

“Although we have faced a significant crisis in the past year, we have also viewed it as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for a leaner WHO to become more focused on its core mission.” He urged member states to keep gradually increasing their membership fees, to reduce the WHO’s reliance on voluntary contributions.

The aim is for membership fees to eventually cover half of the agency’s budget, to secure its “long-term stability, sustainability and independence”.

“I don’t mean independence from member states. Of course, WHO belongs to you and always will,” Tedros stressed. “I mean non-dependence on a handful of donors; I mean non-dependence on inflexible, unpredictable funding; I mean a WHO that’s no longer a contractor to the biggest donors.

“I mean an impartial, science-based organisation that’s free to say what the evidence says, without fear or favour.”

‘Trashed and tarnished’

The executive board meeting, which opened on Monday and runs until Saturday, will discuss the withdrawal notifications of the United States and Argentina.

The United States reserved the right to withdraw when it joined the WHO in 1948 — on condition of one year’s notice, and meeting its financial obligations in full for that fiscal year.

While the notice is now up, Washington has not paid its 2024 or 2025 dues, owing around $260 million.

As the notice countdown expired, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the WHO had “tarnished and trashed everything that America has done for it”, with “the insults to America” continuing to the end. “The reverse is true,” the WHO said in reply.

The US flag outside the WHO headquarters has been taken down, with the US mission in Geneva last week saying the flag was “dedicated to the American lives lost” during the Covid-19 pandemic and was “on its way back” to the United States.

At the executive board, Israel said the WHO had become politicised and the US withdrawal should trigger a rethink about the WHO’s future and purpose.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2026