US gives G7 countries a list of reforms it wants WHO to undertake

The US has presented its G7 partners with a list of reforms Washington would like carried out at the World Health Organization in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The proposals, which were shared on Friday by the health and human services (HHS) department with health ministries in the six other member states, suggested organisational changes intended to reinforce the WHO’s independence and transparency.

However, G7 diplomats said they had not been informed of whether the HHS proposals represented a comprehensive list of US conditions to resume funding of the global health organisation.

“It’s not clear if these are agreed administration-wide,” a western diplomat said.

The generally moderate tone of the proposals is at odds with the strident allegations made against the WHO by the president and state department. Some officials have suggested more radical measures, like creating an independent or semi-autonomous international body that would deal only with global health emergencies.

According to Foreign Policy, the US also circulated a proposal on Wednesday to initiate an early assessment of the WHO’s response to the coronavirus outbreak but close allies are resistant, arguing that such reckoning should wait until the worse of the pandemic is over.

The UK and German ambassadors to Washington, Karen Pierce and Emily Haber, underscored that point on Wednesday.

“The British government’s position is that we do need some reforms in the WHO and to look at the international health regulations,” Pierce said at a virtual discussion organised by the Washington Post. “However, at the moment, the most important thing is to cooperate on tackling the pandemic and get on top of the virus.”

Haber added: “We’ll have to look at what worked, what didn’t work, but it can’t happen in the midst of the crisis. Politicization … would probably be mutually exclusive with getting the transparency we absolutely need.”

Donald Trump cut off US funding to the WHO (of over $400m a year) on 14 April, and has accused it of being “China-centric” and having withheld critical information in the early days of the outbreak. NBC News reported on Wednesday that the White House had ordered US intelligence to investigate WHO actions.

There is no evidence the WHO withheld information. There were 15 US health officials embedded in the organisation in the critical weeks in January and February. Trump only declared a national emergency six weeks after the WHO’s own emergency declaration. His critics have said he is seeking to use the organisation as a scapegoat for the failings of his administration’s sluggish response.

The US reforms presented to the G7 would strengthen the independence of the WHO director general and its emergency committee of international experts, which gives advice on when or whether to take the critical step of declaring a public health emergency of international concern.

When that committee met to consider the coronavirus threat on 22 January, it was split on whether the outbreak merited an emergency declaration, only coming to that conclusion a week later. The US has proposed a third, halfway, option, likened by US officials to the yellow signal on traffic lights.

The HHS document also called for increased transparency in WHO reporting on member state compliance, a clear reference to US dissatisfaction with complimentary remarks about the initial Chinese government response made by the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

In another proposed reform with China in mind, the US is suggesting that member state compliance with international health regulations should be subject to regular review.

“HHS is not going to comment on alleged, leaked documents,” a HHS spokesperson said. “President Trump is holding the WHO accountable by putting a hold on United States funding. The American people deserve better from the WHO and the US is still a member state of the WHO and an active member of the WHO’s executive board.”

“As the Trump administration continues to fight Covid-19, the US will continue to seek to refocus the WHO on fulfilling its core missions of preparedness, response, and stakeholder coordination,” the spokesperson said.

An initial 60-day review of WHO performance is being carried out by the White House office for management and budget. Meanwhile, the US agency for international development has said it is looking for alternative contractors for projects originally earmarked for the WHO.

Democrats have denounced the defunding of the WHO as a diversionary tactic aimed at drawing attention away from Trump’s mistakes, and Eliot Engel, the Democratic chair of the House foreign affairs committee, has called for an inquiry into how the decision was made.

Meanwhile, a group of Republican senators has called for a UN panel of experts to look into the case for WHO reforms, and Roy Blunt, the Republican chair of a Senate appropriations subcommittee on health, urged Trump to maintain WHO funding.

“If the coronavirus has taught us anything it should have taught us that we are not isolated from the rest of the world no matter how well located we are,” Blunt told a Missouri radio station.

“There are so many functions of the WHO that really cannot be replaced by a US-based NGO [non-government organisation], among them sample sharing and sharing of official data,” Amanda Glassman, executive vice-president at the Center for Global Development, said.

In a sign the administration acknowledges that the WHO is indispensable in some parts of the world, the state department is reported by Bloomberg news to have asked for exceptions to the temporary funding ban for Covid-19 and polio projects in Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria and Turkey.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, claimed the WHO had “failed in its mission” to stop the coronavirus outbreak.

“We shouldn’t pretend that because some organisation has health in its title that it’s actually capable of delivering the outcomes that we need,” Pompeo said. But he suggested the US would take a flexible approach.

“If there is a function that only the WHO can do, and we think it is important for American national security because we are good humanitarian partners around the world, I’m confident we’ll find a way to deliver that outcome,” he said.

Glassman said the HHS document shared with the G7 could indicate that the US is looking for a way out of the WHO funding crisis triggered by Trump’s declaration.

“It would be a very elegant way to exit this situation, while sounding reasonable,” she said.