WHO: 40 Percent Aid Plunge Threatens Health Services in Poor Nations
(MENAFN) The World Health Organization (WHO) issued an urgent warning Monday that critical healthcare services across low- and middle-income nations face catastrophic disruption as international health assistance plummets 30% to 40% in 2025 compared to 2023 levels.
New guidance released by the WHO to assist governments navigating this emergency reveals that abrupt financing reductions have slashed access to maternal healthcare, immunization programs, disease monitoring systems and emergency response capacity by up to 70% in certain nations, based on survey findings from this March.
Survey responses from 108 countries demonstrated that more than 50 nations have experienced healthcare workforce layoffs and suspended training initiatives.
"Sudden and unplanned cuts to aid have hit many countries hard, costing lives and jeopardizing hard-won health gains," stated WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "But in the crisis lies an opportunity for countries to transition away from aid dependency towards sustainable self-reliance, based on domestic resources."
The WHO emphasized that 2025's funding collapse intensifies years of chronic health financing obstacles, including escalating debt loads, inflation pressures, economic volatility, excessive out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures, systematic budget shortfalls and overdependence on foreign assistance.
The agency pressed policymakers to elevate health as both a political and fiscal imperative within national budgets even during crises, "seeing health spending as not merely a cost to be contained, but an investment in social stability, human dignity, and economic resilience."
The guidance called on countries to prioritize healthcare services utilized by their poorest populations, safeguard health budgets and vital health programs, enhance efficiency through superior procurement practices, minimized administrative costs and strategic purchasing, and deploy health technology assessments to identify services and products delivering maximum health outcomes per dollar invested.
The WHO highlighted that nations including Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Uganda have already implemented measures to expand health budgets and restructure financing mechanisms.
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