Update on U.S. Withdrawal from the World Health Organization
From U. S. Secretary of State’s office
The United States has long been the world’s most generous provider of health and humanitarian assistance to people around the world. This assistance is provided with the support of the American taxpayer with the reasonable expectation that it serve an effective purpose and reach those in need.
Unfortunately, the World Health Organization has failed badly by those measures, not only in its response to COVID-19, but to other health crises in recent decades. In addition, WHO has declined to adopt urgently needed reforms, starting with demonstrating its independence from the Chinese Communist Party.
When President Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from that organization, he made clear that we would seek more credible and transparent partners.
That withdrawal becomes effective on July 6, 2021, and since the President’s announcement, the U.S. government has been working to identify partners to assume the activities previously undertaken by WHO.
Today, the United States is announcing the next steps with respect to our withdrawal from the WHO and the redirection of American resources. This redirection includes reprogramming the remaining balance of its planned Fiscal Year 2020 assessed WHO contributions to partially pay other UN assessments.
In addition, through July 2021, the United States will scale down its engagement with the WHO, to include recalling the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailees from WHO headquarters, regional offices, and country offices, and reassigning these experts. U.S. participation in WHO technical meetings and events will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
MS ORTAGUS: Thank you so much and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for this on-the-record briefing regarding next steps in the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Just a reminder that the – while this call is on the record, the contents of this call are embargoed until the end of the call. Also a reminder if you have a question to ask, you can go ahead and get in the queue at any time by dialing 1 and then 0.
So I’m joined today by briefers from the three agencies that are most relevant to this effort. For the Department of State, we have Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Nerissa Cook from the Bureau of International Organizational Affairs. From HHS we have Garrett Grigsby, director of that agency’s Office of Global Affairs. And from USAID we have Dr. Alma Golden, assistant administrator for global health. Each of these experts will have a very brief opening remarks outlining recent decisions regarding the World Health Organization, and then we will turn to your questions. We’ll begin with remarks from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Nerissa Cook.
MS COOK: Thank you very much and good afternoon to all, and thank you for joining us today for this briefing. As mentioned, I’m Nerissa Cook and I’m a deputy assistant secretary for international organizations at the Department of State, and I help oversee the institutional relationship between the United States and the World Health Organization.
As you all know, in May the President announced that the United States would terminate its relationship with WHO and redirect its global health resources to other, more credible partners. This step was taken after the President gave WHO the opportunity to embrace crucial reforms, most notably to demonstrate its independence from the Chinese Communist Party. WHO leadership declined to take that opportunity, resulting in the President’s decision. On July 6th of this year, the United States submitted its notice of withdrawal from the WHO effective on July 6, 2021. Today we are announcing significant steps to complete that process in and on that timeline, and including on matters related to funding.
I am pleased to be joined today by colleagues from USAID and HHS. Dr. Alma Golden and Director Garrett Grigsby are true experts on questions related to America’s global health leadership and will address some of the specific actions we are announcing today.
Before we proceed, let me note in advance that the information we are providing today was also presented to WHO Director General Tedros during a meeting earlier today with our U.S. ambassador in Geneva, Andrew Bremberg.
To begin, I would like to discuss the status of U.S. assessed contributions to the WHO. These are the annual dues that member-states are required to pay as the price of membership. As with many UN organizations, the U.S. is assessed at 22 percent of the WHO’s regular budget, which typically totals more than $100 million a year. For Fiscal Year 2020, the U.S. assessment was just over $120 million, of which 58 million had already been contributed at the time of the President’s April decision to suspend additional funding. Today we are announcing the remaining portion of the 2020 assessment, slightly more than $62 million, will be reprogrammed to the UN to pay other assessments.
I would like to turn now to my colleagues to discuss some of the specific steps their agencies are taking to implement the President’s decision, but let me make one additional comment about the U.S. institutional relationship with the WHO going forward: There may be instances in the future when the United States wishes to participate in particular meetings of the WHO’s governing bodies and technical and advisory committees where we believe American interests need to be represented. We will consider those instances on a case-by-case basis.
Now for additional detail on questions related to funding of global health priorities, let me turn first to HHS and Doctor Garrett Grigsby.
MR GRIGSBY: Thanks, Nerissa. To correct the record, I’m actually not a doctor.
MS COOK: Director.
MR GRIGSBY: (Laughter.) Yeah, this is Garrett Grigsby with HHS. Good afternoon, everybody. A number of operating divisions of the Department of Health and Human Services traditionally have engaged with the World Health Organization and some of these interactions have included voluntary contributions. In the case of voluntary program funding, operating divisions of HHS have in some cases – many cases, really – found other recipients to carry out activities moving forward. As you know, the U.S. Government is the most generous funder of global health activities on Earth and has been for decades, with extensive partnerships all around the world working in virtually every issue area.
The WHO activities that HHS will support this year are one-time exceptions for funding, up to $40 million, in the program areas of immunization and influenza. These contributions would be to ensure continuity of activities important to the health security of Americans for which there was not immediate alternative programmatic partners. They’ll ensure that activities critical – of critical concerns to the health of Americans will continue until appropriate alternative partners are secured. The one-year timeline for U.S. withdrawal from WHO allows time to find and secure partnerships to fund critical programs. HHS is well underway with this process to make this happen in advance of the one-year anniversary of Secretary Pompeo’s letter to the UN Secretary-General making known U.S. intentions with regard to WHO.
Finally, HHS has a number of individuals detailed to WHO working on technical health issues. We’re working with these individuals to bring them home or to send them to their next assignment in advance of 2021 when the U.S. will no longer be a member of WHO. So that’s what I’ve got. Back to you, Nerissa.
MS COOK: Thank you very much, Garrett. And now I would like to turn to USAID and Dr. Alma Golden.
MS GOLDEN: Thank you so much. We appreciate you joining us this afternoon. I’m Dr. Alma Golden. I’m the assistant administrator for global health at the United States Agency for International Development, USAID. I’m pleased to join my colleagues from the Department of State and Health and Human Services to speak with you today.
As my colleague Garrett Grigsby just noted in his remarks, USAID has funded our work with the World Health Organization through voluntary contributions. My colleagues and I at the agency have worked diligently to identify appropriate partners to carry out this urgent and complex work on which we previously collaborated with WHO. Despite progress on the humanitarian reform, it is critical that the WHO better prepare for, prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks of dangerous pathogens with transparency and with accountability. While in the vast majority of cases, USAID has identified strong and appropriate partners to carry forward this work, we will make a one-time disbursement of up to $68 million to the WHO to support humanitarian health assistance in Libya and Syria as well as efforts to eradicate polio in priority countries. These exceptions reflect the few cases in which WHO has the unique capabilities that an alternate partner could not replicate at this time.
Since 2001, the U.S. Government has contributed more than $142 billion to help prevent, detect, and treat HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, Ebola, and other dangerous diseases and conditions. We give an average of $10 billion per year for global health, and this year, it will be double that as we surge to fight COVID-19 worldwide.
USAID is determined to ensure that our withdrawal from WHO does not affect the level of our overall health assistance to the most vulnerable. The United States leads the world in health and humanitarian aid through an all-of-America effort, and we are committed to ensuring that our generosity directly reaches people around the world. We and the rest of the U.S. Government will continue to engage the WHO on a limited basis during this coming year of our withdrawal.
On a case-by-case basis, the United States will participate in specific meetings of the WHO’s governing bodies and technical and advisory committees. Our priorities will be events and processes of a normative, regulatory and standard-setting nature that have a direct impact on Americans, on U.S. national security, on U.S. economic interests, U.S. companies, and on the U.S. Government’s global health investments.
Thank you very much. Back to you, Nerissa.
MS COOK: Thank you, and I think we’ll turn it back to Morgan to begin the Q&A.
MS ORTAGUS: Great. So we do have some people in the queue. We’ll take as many questions as we can with the time allotted. Reminder to dial 1 and then 0 if you’d like to get in the queue. First up is Nick Wadhams from Bloomberg.
QUESTION: Hi, thanks very much. I had a couple questions. The first is: Is there any circumstance under which the U.S. would consider rejoining the WHO if it enacted reforms that the administration seeks? And then also, just to follow up on something you said, if the U.S. believes that the WHO is such a failed institution, why do you believe that you should stay involved with the organization?
And then secondly, in March, the Secretary said Americans “should be aware and proud of our vast commitments to [these] important institutions” – that’s a direct quote – including the WHO. That was March 31st after the extent of the virus was largely known, so I’m curious what changed between March 31st when Secretary Pompeo said that and July when the President decided to pull out of WHO. Thank you.