France Strengthens Support for WHO with New Funding Agreements

©WHO/Chris B.Geneva – His Excellency Jérôme Bonnafont, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations in Geneva, and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, today signed several funding agreements totaling € 25.5 million to support critical health priorities.The agreements include € 4.5 million of funding for the Core Voluntary Contribution Account (CVCA) of WHO; these are fully flexible funds which allow WHO to allocate resources to key priorities outlined in its General Programme of Work. An additional € 15 million will be used to deliver on specific key priorities, such as One Health, the advancement of universal health coverage, and primary health care, communicable and noncommunicable diseases, the medical countermeasure initiative, and the country readiness strengthening through WHO’s office in Lyon.A large part of the contribution (€ 6 million) is aimed at covering the humanitarian response on several fronts: € 2 million will go towards enhancing mental health initiatives in Ukraine; € 0.35 million is to support the response to the cholera outbreak in Malawi; € 1 million will support WHO’s humanitarian response in Gaza, with an additional € 2 million dedicated to strengthening the technical and human activities of the WHO Office in the occupied Palestinian territory. Finally, € 0.65 million will go to the Contingency Fund for Emergencies, to be used as needs arise.“As one of the world’s largest economies, France has a critical role to play in global health. France's financial contributions and agreements, signed today, provide flexibility and align well with WHO’s priorities to promote, provide, protect, power and perform for health” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.France’s WHO Framework Agreement for the period 2020-2025 ensures sustainable funding for priority health programmes, aligned with WHO priorities.Some of the joint 2022-2023 collaboration priorities include the work of the WHO Academy, based in Lyon, stronger health systems towards universal health coverage, health emergencies – in particular the International Health Regulations (IHR) and health emergencies preparedness – and reducing health inequalities.These priorities align with the France Global Health Strategy 2023-2027, published in October 2023.“Committed to global health, France supports the WHO’s action in crises and for the benefit of the most vulnerable,” said Jérôme Bonnafont, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations.In 2020-2021, the Republic of France contributed over US$ 143 million to WHO, (including assessed and voluntary contributions), with 76% of the contributions in flexible and thematic funds. Flexible funds allow WHO to assign resources when and where they are needed most, ensuring that key priorities are funded, and a better flow of funds, enabling a more agile delivery of WHO’s objectives as per the General Programme of Work.