Facing a significant funding loss with the exit of its biggest contributor, the World Health Organization and its member states will have to decide in the coming months what functions of the agency they should prioritize.
“It's needed now more than ever,” Björn Kümmel, head of global health at the German Federal Ministry of Health, said in an interview with Dr. Søren Brostrøm, the WHO director of transformation.
“I think that we have not done a great job over the last decades to clarify what is the core of WHO’s mandate, from my point of view, and also … what is the comparative advantage of WHO? What are the functions that only WHO can perform, and nobody else?” he said.
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About the author
Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo
Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.
