Countries must pay more towards WHO: Indonesian candidate

The World Health Organization should focus on reprioritising its spending rather than chasing replacement funding, said Indonesia's Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

JAKARTA: Indonesia's health minister, who is vying for the World Health Organization's top job, said on Monday (Nov 2) that he was in favour of countries paying higher mandatory contributions to offset the slash to its budget from the US withdrawal.

Budi Gunadi Sadikin told AFP the UN's health agency should focus on reprioritising its spending rather than chasing replacement funding - allocating bigger amounts for fewer projects.

"The priority is to review the functions (of the WHO), get the agreement of the countries and then ... we look for the (new) money," said the minister, who is one of seven candidates for the post of WHO director-general.

CNA Games Guess Word Crack the word, one row at a time Buzzword Create words using the given letters Mini Sudoku Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser Mini Crossword Small grid, big challenge Word Search Spot as many words as you can Show More Show Less "Every country says the WHO needs to be sustainable. You cannot be sustainable if your membership contribution is only 20 per cent or 30 per cent (of the total budget)", Budi said.

"If you want to be sustainable, then at least the regular funding ... should be more than 50 per cent."

Member countries make mandatory payments called "assessed contributions" to the WHO, which are calculated every two years based on income and population size.

The rest of the budget - the bulk - comes from voluntary contributions from governments and donors.

Budi insisted that raising the threshold to 50 per cent would not be too onerous for countries, even at a time of global financial strain.

"I've seen the numbers ... You're not talking about billions of even a hundred million. It's not a big number," he said.

Divided by the body's 100 plus member countries, it would amount to tens of thousands of US dollars each.

Budi said the United States' official departure from the WHO in January was "not a total disaster" for the organisation, which was left with a similar budget to before the COVID-19 pandemic.