When he became US President in January 2025 one of Donald Trump’s first actions was to withdraw funding from the World Health Organisation (WHO), prompting the agency to scale back its work and cut its management team by half.

Washington had been the WHO’s biggest financial backer, contributing slightly more than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foudation in 2020-23. See https://www.who.int/about/funding for more detail.

The Guardian reported that it has seen a lengthy email sent from the WHO chief, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to staff, in which he said the year had been “one of the most difficult in WHO’s history”. He said the process of cutting positions had involved “painful conversations” with staff, who had expressed “their pain, anxiety and, in some cases, their anger”.

Ghebreyesus said there was still a funding gap of $1bn for 2026 and 2027, and asked UN member states for support to close it.

In January, when WHO had 9,401 staff members, it said it expected to lose 2,371 posts – nearly a quarter of its workforce – by June 2026 as it deals with budget cuts after the US withdrawal. Pete Baker, the deputy director of global health policy and a fellow at the Center for Global Development, said: “WHO staffing cuts are a regrettable but inevitable outcome of US withdrawal and lower-than-hoped-for contributions by other countries. The loss of expertise will leave the world less healthy and less safe.”

WHO said that about half of the reduction in staff would come from natural attrition such as retirements or the end of temporary contracts; the rest from “position abolition”.

The highest number of cuts – 805 posts – will be in the WHO’s Geneva-based headquarters. Its African regional office will be the next worst affected, losing 638 of 2,541 posts according to documents posted online.

Dr Githinji Gitahi, chief executive of Amref Health Africa, said although the cuts were expected,”it is rapid in nature, and with little transition planning. With these cuts, certain functions, especially disease surveillance, supply chain management and emergency response will inevitably be impacted. African governments are going to have to lift more weight than before.”

WHO is not the only UN organisation seeking to reduce its costs

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), for example, has headquarters in New York and its European office is in Geneva. These are both very expensive cities, so nearly 300 jobs will be relocated from Geneva to Rome, leaving only around 100 in Geneva.

More Information

House of Commons Library Briefing: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10379/