UN health agency warns cuts jeopardizing maternal care, vaccination and disease surveillance, urges shift to sustainable domestic financing in low, middle-income countries

Essential health services in low- and middle-income countries are being severely disrupted as external health aid is projected to fall by 30% to 40% in 2025 compared with 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday.

In its new guidance to help governments respond to the crisis, the WHO said sharp, sudden funding cuts are reducing access to maternal care, vaccinations, disease surveillance and emergency preparedness by as much as 70% in some countries, according to survey data collected this March.

The data from 108 countries showed that over 50 countries have also reported job losses among health workers and interruptions to training programs.

"Sudden and unplanned cuts to aid have hit many countries hard, costing lives and jeopardizing hard-won health gains," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "But in the crisis lies an opportunity for countries to transition away from aid dependency towards sustainable self-reliance, based on domestic resources."

According to the WHO, this year's funding cuts have compounded years of persistent health financing challenges for countries, including rising debt burdens, inflation, economic uncertainty, high out-of-pocket spending, systemic budget underfunding and heavy reliance on external aid.

The agency urged policymakers to make health a political and fiscal priority in government budgets even during times of crisis, "seeing health spending as not merely a cost to be contained, but an investment in social stability, human dignity, and economic resilience."

The guidance demanded countries to prioritize the health services accessed by the poorest, protect health budgets and essential health services, improve efficiency through better procurement, reduced overheads and strategic purchasing, use health technology assessments to prioritize services and products that have the greatest health impact per dollar spent.

The WHO said countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Uganda have already taken steps to boost health budgets and reform financing systems. (AA)

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