The director general of the World Health Organisation, Gro Harlem Brundtland, will next week ask the organisation’s governing body to approve radically overhauled spending plans reflecting her programme of reforms.
The WHO’s executive board, which meets from 25 January in Geneva, will be presented with budget proposals for the years 2000-1 that require an increase of nearly one fifth in voluntary contributions by donors—that is, an increase in the amount paid over and above membership dues.
Dr Brundtland believes that the reforms already under way within the organisation will attract further support from member states.
The proposed budget of $1.8bn for the next two years allocates $19m in extra funds to Africa and a smaller amount to the former Soviet republics. There is an overall shift in resources from headquarters and the six regional offices to activities at country level.
At headquarters, spending on communicable diseases continues to account for the biggest share of funds, at $284000, an increase of 37% on the last budget. But two much smaller areas of the WHO’s work will attract the biggest increases in spending: non-communicable diseases, which doubles its budget to $14000, and data analysing activities known as evidence and information for policy, whose budget climbs by 44% to $48000. Three new, high profile initiatives to be spearheaded by Dr Brundtland—tobacco control, malaria control, and health sector development—will each receive extra resources. Managerial and administrative costs have been cut.
The new budget is intended to be more transparent, reflecting the new structure of the WHO. Previously, member states found it almost impossible to work out how their money was being spent because the categories in the budget did not reflect the organisation’s structure. Now, 52 disparate programmes have been turned into nine clusters, and these are linked to the budget.
Figure.
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland has called for a shift of WHO resources