American President Donald Trump signing an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO) has drawn criticism from many observers and analysts. In 2020, Trump made a similar attempt, stating that the international health body had failed to handle the COVID-19 pandemic adequately. That initial withdrawal was overturned by former President Joe Biden’s administration a few months later.
Withdrawal from the WHO requires a 12-month notice; Trump signing the order at the beginning of his term gives him enough time to actualize the order. While this falls within Trump’s nationalistic policies, American public health analysts say the WHO exit would make the U.S. more vulnerable to infectious diseases and other health threats.
“We need an effective WHO to not just keep the world safe from these diseases, but to keep Americans safe from these diseases,” says Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the school of public health at Brown University and former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator.
This decision, which will mark a radical shift in U.S. global health policy, will have huge global ramifications, particularly for Africa. Over the last seven decades, the U.S. has routinely been the WHO’s biggest donor, contributing $1.28 billion in 2022-2023, with Africa receiving 26 percent of the funding – the highest portion.
From last year until now, the U.S. has contributed over $958 million to the WHO, and 24.63 percent of that funding has gone to Africa – third highest. While his first attempt to exit WHO was unsuccessful, Trump ordered a reduction in WHO funding, a gap that was picked up by several European governments. If the same scenario happens again, it’s difficult to project that the same external benevolence will happen, considering that many European countries are also dealing with the rise of right-leaning, nationalist movements and governments.
Without the assured support of the U.S. to the WHO, African countries would be negatively impacted. The WHO has led emergency responses to various outbreaks on the continent, including mpox, Marburg and Ebola; currently it’s assisting Tanzania with a Marburg outbreak and it is helping with mpox vaccine delivery from the U.S. and other countries. A significant reduction in funding via the U.S. withdrawal will affect the scale at which the WHO can function on the continent.
The healthcare budgets of most African countries barely cover primary health services, making WHO, and other international organizations like UNICEF and UNHCR vital to the healthcare needs of Africans.
Nigeria, which allocated just over 5 percent of its 2025 budget to health at 2.48 trillion naira ($1.59 billion), exemplifies these challenges. It is barely a secret that the country’s healthcare system is hugely underfunded, with greatly stretched primary health centers, a dearth of world-class facilities, shortage of personnel and many other challenges.
The WHO is one of Nigeria’s most important health partners, and U.S. funding plays a big role in that. From 2022-2023, Nigeria received $40.9 million from U.S. donations to the WHO, making it the country that received the highest portion. In 2024-2025 so far, $10.7 million has been disbursed from the U.S. through the WHO.
Nigeria dearly needs every dollar the U.S. contributes to its healthcare system via the WHO, as it helps with the prevention of epidemics and pandemics, response to acute health emergencies, polio prevention, workforce training, and much more. This situation isn’t peculiar to Nigeria; many African countries need robust WHO support, which will no doubt take a hit if U.S. withdrawal effectively happens a year from now.
Trump’s plan may have to go through Congress, since the U.S. joined the WHO through a joint Congress resolution in 1948. “When Congress has joined something, then you typically need Congress to support a presidential decision to leave it,” saysLawrence Gostin, law professor and director of the WHO Collaborating Center at Georgetown University.
The WHO has said it regrets the U.S.’s potential withdrawal, stating that it “plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go.”
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For Education and discussion purposes. Please note no copyright infringement is intended, was recorded on BlkCosmo’s own equipment, and we do not own nor claim to own any of the original recordings used in this video and intend to use this as ‘fair use’.
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