WHO is the World Health Organization that directs international health in the UN system. Is it the Director-General, the Executive Board, or is it the Secretariat of WHO that holds the reigns of power?
The answer to who has the most power over WHO is not simple. The complexity arises from money. Dr. Linsey McGoey a lecturer in sociology at the University of Essex recently wrote a book entitled No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy. During a webcast at the Hudson Institute she revealed some interesting facts.
The WHO’s budget used to be from different countries put into a fund; however in the last 30 years there has been a shift away from that. Now 70% of funds are from voluntary contributions. That does not sound harmful until she points out that these charitable donations come with strings attached. The majority of contributions are not related to disease; instead, the donors give the donations for other specific causes. One could say they are championing what they believe in, one could also say that are using money as leverage to advance their ideology.
Dr. McGoey uses Bill Gates as one of the prime examples of donators pulling the WHO’s strings. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation established a $40 billion `endowment with $3 billion disbursed cumulatively for US primary and secondary education; for global health; and for global agriculture and development. Gates Foundation is the second largest donor to WHO behind the US government. In total their donations make up 10% of the WHO budget.
Dr. McGoey brought up a point made by a very well known health scholar Laurie Garrett that “currently at the WHO there are no major high level policy decisions implemented without being as she put it, without being casually, unofficially, vetted by the Gates Foundation.” The Gates Foundation is seen as wielding unprecedented influence.
According to Dr. McGoey in some circles Bill Gates is referred to as the Global Health Czar. Such a nickname highlights the character of Bill Gates’ donations. His donations are not gifts freely given: his donations are leverage: money given with specific expectations. He has more sway at the WHO then most countries when it comes to policy agendas.
Perhaps you are wondering why this is even important. Why does it matter who influences the WHO? Because the threat to democratic institutions, if you are against population control, abortion, contraception, etc., then who controls the World Health Organization is noteworthy.
Recently, the Gates Foundation has pledged to donate $120 million to Family Planning 2020 programs “the rights of women and girls to decide when and how many children they want to have,” the news website All Africa reported. From 2009 to 2013, the Gates Foundation gave $71 million to Planned Parenthood. These are just a few examples of the Gates’ philanthropic gifts towards “reproductive health.”
Already, the WHO is a proponent of “reproductive health” and the rights of all people “…to be informed of and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of fertility regulation of their choice…”. To help this be realized the WHO “provides global technical and policy guidance on the use of contraception to prevent unintended pregnancy, safe abortion, and treatment of complications from unsafe abortion.”
As forces on the international level continue to push for the reproductive health agenda in policy as well as in individual countries, the link between mega foundations, such as the Gates Foundation, and policymakers need to be questioned and more fully exposed.
About The Contributor
