World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health.[2] It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has six regional offices[3] and 150 field offices worldwide.[4]
"WHO" redirects here. For other uses, see Who (disambiguation).Abbreviation
WHO
- /ˌdʌbəljuːˌeɪtʃˈoʊ/ by WHO itself and the governments that work with it.
7 April 1948
Active
Geneva, Switzerland 46°13′56″N 06°08′03″E / 46.23222°N 6.13417°E
$6.83 billion (2024–25)
The WHO was established on April 7, 1948, and convened its first meeting on July 24 of that year.[5][6] It incorporated the assets, personnel, and duties of the League of Nations' Health Organization and the Paris-based Office International d'Hygiène Publique, including the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).[7] The agency's work began in earnest in 1951 after a significant infusion of financial and technical resources.[8]
The WHO's official mandate is to promote health and safety while helping the vulnerable worldwide. It provides technical assistance to countries, sets international health standards, collects data on global health issues, and serves as a forum for scientific or policy discussions related to health.[2] Its official publication, the World Health Report, provides assessments of worldwide health topics.[9]
The WHO has played a leading role in several public health achievements, most notably the eradication of smallpox, the near-eradication of polio, and the development of an Ebola vaccine. Its current priorities include communicable diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis; non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and cancer; healthy diet, nutrition, and food security; occupational health; and substance abuse. The agency advocates for universal health care coverage, engagement with the monitoring of public health risks, coordinating responses to health emergencies, and promoting health and well-being generally.[10]
The WHO is governed by the World Health Assembly (WHA), which is composed of its 194 member states. The WHA elects and advises an executive board made up of 34 health specialists; selects the WHO's chief administrator, the director-general (currently Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia);[11] sets goals and priorities; and approves the budget and activities. The WHO is funded primarily by contributions from member states (both assessed a Then and voluntary), followed by private donors. Its total approved budget for 2020–2021 is over $7.2 billion.,[2][12] while the approved budget for 2022–2023 is over $6.2 billion. The budget is $6.83 billion for 2024 - 2025
History[edit]
Origin and founding[edit]
The International Sanitary Conferences (ISC), the first of which was held on 23 June 1851, were a series of conferences that took place until 1938, about 87 years.[13] The first conference, in Paris, was almost solely concerned with cholera, which would remain the disease of major concern for the ISC for most of the 19th century. With the cause, origin, and communicability of many epidemic diseases still uncertain and a matter of scientific argument, international agreement on appropriate measures was difficult to reach.[13]
Seven of these international conferences, spanning 41 years, were convened before any resulted in a multi-state international agreement. The seventh conference, in Venice in 1892, finally resulted in a convention. It was concerned only with the sanitary control of shipping traversing the Suez Canal, and was an effort to guard against importation of cholera.[14]: 65
Five years later, in 1897, a convention concerning the bubonic plague was signed by sixteen of the 19 states attending the Venice conference. While Denmark, Sweden-Norway, and the US did not sign this convention, it was unanimously agreed that the work of the prior conferences should be codified for implementation.[15] Subsequent conferences, from 1902 until the final one in 1938, widened the diseases of concern for the ISC, and included discussions of responses to yellow fever, brucellosis, leprosy, tuberculosis, and typhoid.[16] In part as a result of the successes of the Conferences, the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau (1902), and the Office International d'Hygiène Publique (1907) were soon founded. When the League of Nations was formed in 1920, it established the Health Organization of the League of Nations. After World War II, the United Nations absorbed all the other health organizations, to form the WHO.[17]
Establishment[edit]
During the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization, Szeming Sze, a delegate from China, conferred with Norwegian and Brazilian delegates on creating an international health organization under the auspices of the new United Nations. After failing to get a resolution passed on the subject, Alger Hiss, the secretary general of the conference, recommended using a declaration to establish such an organization. Sze and other delegates lobbied and a declaration passed calling for an international conference on health.[18] The use of the word "world", rather than "international", emphasized the truly global nature of what the organization was seeking to achieve.[19] The constitution of the World Health Organization was signed by all 51 countries of the United Nations, and by 10 other countries, on 22 July 1946.[20] It thus became the first specialized agency of the United Nations to which every member subscribed.[21] Its constitution formally came into force on the first World Health Day on 7 April 1948, when it was ratified by the 26th member state.[20]
The first meeting of the World Health Assembly finished on 24 July 1948, having secured a budget of US$5 million (then £1,250,000) for the 1949 year. G. Brock Chisholm was appointed director-general of the WHO, having served as executive secretary and a founding member during the planning stages,[22][19] while Andrija Štampar was the assembly's first president. Its first priorities were to control the spread of malaria, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections, and to improve maternal and child health, nutrition and environmental hygiene.[23] Its first legislative act was concerning the compilation of accurate statistics on the spread and morbidity of disease.[19] The logo of the World Health Organization features the Rod of Asclepius as a symbol for healing.[24]
In 1959, the WHO signed Agreement WHA 12–40 with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which says:[25]
Policies and objectives[edit]
Overall focus[edit]
The WHO's Constitution states that its objective "is the attainment by all people of the highest possible level of health".[48]
The WHO fulfils this objective through its functions as defined in its Constitution:
(a) To act as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work;
(b) To establish and maintain effective collaboration with the United Nations, specialized agencies, governmental health administrations, professional groups and such other organizations as may be deemed appropriate;
(c) To assist Governments, upon request, in strengthening health services;
(d) To furnish appropriate technical assistance and, in emergencies, necessary aid upon the request or acceptance of Governments;
(e) To provide or assist in providing, upon the request of the United Nations, health services and facilities to special groups, such as the peoples of trust territories;
(f) To establish and maintain such administrative and technical services as may be required, including epidemiological and statistical services;
(g) To stimulate and advance work to eradicate epidemic, endemic and other diseases;
(h) To promote, in co-operation with other specialized agencies where necessary, the prevention of accidental injuries;
(i) To promote, in co-operation with other specialized agencies where necessary, the improvement of nutrition, housing, sanitation, recreation, economic or working conditions and other aspects of environmental hygiene; (j) To promote co-operation among scientific and professional groups which contribute to the advancement of health; (k) To propose conventions, agreements and regulations, and make recommendations with respect to international health matters and to perform (Article 2 of the Constitution).
As of 2012, the WHO has defined its role in public health as follows:[49]
Stairwell, 1969
Internal courtyard, 1969
Reflecting pool, 1969
Exterior, 1969
From southwest, 2013
Entrance hall, 2013
Main conference room, 2013
