5 ms·

Yes, the political signaling is one thing. I am trying to objectively understand: What is the return of investment (funds?) for being a member of this organiza

Yes, the political signaling is one thing. I am trying to objectively understand: What is the return of investment (funds?) for being a member of this organization? I presume they're doing more than just handling Coronavirus. So, I found the official data [1]. I̵n̵ ̵2̵0̵1̵9̵ ̵-̵ ̵U̵S̵ ̵p̵a̵i̵d̵ ̵$̵6̵7̵M̵ ̵o̵u̵t̵ ̵o̵f̵ ̵t̵o̵t̵a̵l̵ ̵$̵1̵0̵1̵M̵ ̵(̵6̵6̵%̵)̵ ̵i̵n̵ ̵f̵u̵n̵d̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵i̵f̵ ̵I̵ ̵a̵m̵ ̵r̵e̵a̵d̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵t̵h̵i̵s̵ ̵r̵i̵g̵h̵t̵ ̵[̵2̵]̵.̵ ̵ ̵I̵n̵ ̵2̵0̵2̵0̵ ̵-̵ ̵U̵S̵ ̵p̵a̵i̵d̵ ̵$̵9̵9̵M̵ ̵o̵u̵t̵ ̵o̵f̵ ̵t̵o̵t̵a̵l̵ ̵$̵1̵8̵2̵M̵ ̵(̵5̵4̵%̵)̵ ̵i̵n̵ ̵t̵o̵t̵a̵l̵ ̵c̵o̵n̵t̵r̵i̵b̵u̵t̵i̵o̵n̵s̵.̵ ̵[̵3̵]̵ Correct source, US (gov) contributes about 16 % of the total budget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization#Financing_and_partnerships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization#Fina... What does the US get in return? There is also soft power and other influence that US expects to gain from it besides the raw ROI. The initial assessment is impossible unless we understand the benefit of the membership. [1] https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/assessed-contributions/en/ https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/as... [2] https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/AC_Status_Report_2019.pdf https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/AC... [3] https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/2020-21_AC_Summary.pdf https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/20...

ceejayoz 6y ago
> What does the US get in return? "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." A tiny drop in the bucket of the US budget to keep polio from resurging in the developing world sounds like a decent investment. (Those numbers don't appear to be correct, either; the US contributes about 16%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization#Financing_and_partnerships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization#Fina...)
- fermienrico 6y ago
  > A tiny drop in the bucket of the US budget to keep polio from resurging in the developing world sounds like a decent investment. Definitely. Can you double check the source I linked? I did and it contradicts with the wikipedia which is weird.
- thu2111 6y ago
  They didn't develop an Ebola vaccine. Pharma companies develop vaccines. Eradication of smallpox was indeed an achievement, however, it was also many decades ago. The modern WHO is different people. In more recent times, there is a history of problematic behaviour, like changing their own definition of pandemic specifically so they could declare one for a trivial disease (Swine Flu) and then lying about having done so, although archive.org remembers all: https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-swine-flu-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html#4c6224c448e8 https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-...
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > Pharma companies develop vaccines. And the WHO helps get it where it's needed. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/18-10-2019-major-milestone-for-who-supported-ebola-vaccine https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/18-10-2019-major-milest... > A randomized trial for the vaccine began during the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2015. When no other organization was positioned to run a trial in Guinea during the complex emergency, the government of Guinea and WHO took the unusual step to lead the trial. > A global coalition of funders and researchers provided the critical support required. Funders included the Canadian Government (through the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, International Development Research Centre, Global Affairs Canada); the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (through the Research Council of Norway's GLOBVAC programme); the Wellcome Trust; the UK government through the Department for International Development; and Médecins Sans Frontières. > In the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 236,000 people have been vaccinated with rVSV ZEBOV GP donated by Merck to WHO, including more than 60,000 health and frontline workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi. As for the Forbes blog, the author doesn't have a great record on public health: https://nypost.com/2020/03/08/coronavirus-going-to-hit-its-peak-and-start-falling-sooner-than-you-think/ https://nypost.com/2020/03/08/coronavirus-going-to-hit-its-p...
    - thu2111 6y ago
      The author of the Forbes blog is irrelevant. There are sources cited for the claims made. Besides, the article you link says a lot of things that are true. Death rates vary according to age, China peaked and declined first, CV affects high risk groups the most (kinda tautological but not really discussed much in early March when it was written), etc. I'm not sure what's so objectionable about it.
john_miller 6y ago
According to wikipedia you are more than an order of magnitude off: "In 2018-19, the EU and its member states contributed 11% of the WHO's $5.6 billion budget, the US contributed 15%, while China contributed 0.2%"
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Thanks, trying to reconcile it. I will check the Wikipedia source when I get some time and tally up the numbers. All - please help verify the source I linked above if you can. Take it with a grain of salt for now.
tw04 6y ago
I guess I'm not clear how you're even reading the table. The US paid $115M out of $488M total for 2020. 23% is obviously a large chunk, but the contributions appear to be based on GDP. We have ~23% of the worldwide GDP and pay in ~23% to the WHO.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
freeopinion 6y ago
A cynic might suggest that the U.S. gets intelligence access into parts of the world they would otherwise not so easily be allowed.
dashundchen 6y ago
I don't think you are interpreting those links correctly. For 2, where I think you pulled the $67/101 million, appears to be the outstanding balance of assessment including what was unpaid over previous periods. Not familiar with the data but that doesn't sound like the required contributions in a year, it just sounds like the US has the biggest unpaid assessed bill. For 3, I don't see where you obtained those numbers either. The "gross assessment" which I assume is the contribution based on wealth/population is $236 million for the US vs $1076 million total assessed. Again not familiar with the data, I could be wrong. That's how I am reading those documents though.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Thanks for the correction. I'll edit the comment.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
How do you do that strikethrough in markdown?
- icebraining 6y ago
  Using unicode: https://yaytext.com/strike/ https://yaytext.com/strike/

ceejayoz 6y ago

> What does the US get in return? "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." A tiny drop in the bucket of the US budget to keep polio from resurging in the developing world sounds like a decent investment. (Those numbers don't appear to be correct, either; the US contributes about 16%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization#Financing_and_partnerships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization#Fina...)

fermienrico 6y ago
> A tiny drop in the bucket of the US budget to keep polio from resurging in the developing world sounds like a decent investment. Definitely. Can you double check the source I linked? I did and it contradicts with the wikipedia which is weird.
thu2111 6y ago
They didn't develop an Ebola vaccine. Pharma companies develop vaccines. Eradication of smallpox was indeed an achievement, however, it was also many decades ago. The modern WHO is different people. In more recent times, there is a history of problematic behaviour, like changing their own definition of pandemic specifically so they could declare one for a trivial disease (Swine Flu) and then lying about having done so, although archive.org remembers all: https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-swine-flu-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html#4c6224c448e8 https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-...
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > Pharma companies develop vaccines. And the WHO helps get it where it's needed. https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/18-10-2019-major-milestone-for-who-supported-ebola-vaccine https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/18-10-2019-major-milest... > A randomized trial for the vaccine began during the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2015. When no other organization was positioned to run a trial in Guinea during the complex emergency, the government of Guinea and WHO took the unusual step to lead the trial. > A global coalition of funders and researchers provided the critical support required. Funders included the Canadian Government (through the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, International Development Research Centre, Global Affairs Canada); the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (through the Research Council of Norway's GLOBVAC programme); the Wellcome Trust; the UK government through the Department for International Development; and Médecins Sans Frontières. > In the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 236,000 people have been vaccinated with rVSV ZEBOV GP donated by Merck to WHO, including more than 60,000 health and frontline workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi. As for the Forbes blog, the author doesn't have a great record on public health: https://nypost.com/2020/03/08/coronavirus-going-to-hit-its-peak-and-start-falling-sooner-than-you-think/ https://nypost.com/2020/03/08/coronavirus-going-to-hit-its-p...
  - thu2111 6y ago
    The author of the Forbes blog is irrelevant. There are sources cited for the claims made. Besides, the article you link says a lot of things that are true. Death rates vary according to age, China peaked and declined first, CV affects high risk groups the most (kinda tautological but not really discussed much in early March when it was written), etc. I'm not sure what's so objectionable about it.

john_miller 6y ago

According to wikipedia you are more than an order of magnitude off: "In 2018-19, the EU and its member states contributed 11% of the WHO's $5.6 billion budget, the US contributed 15%, while China contributed 0.2%"

fermienrico 6y ago
Thanks, trying to reconcile it. I will check the Wikipedia source when I get some time and tally up the numbers. All - please help verify the source I linked above if you can. Take it with a grain of salt for now.

tw04 6y ago

I guess I'm not clear how you're even reading the table. The US paid $115M out of $488M total for 2020. 23% is obviously a large chunk, but the contributions appear to be based on GDP. We have ~23% of the worldwide GDP and pay in ~23% to the WHO.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

freeopinion 6y ago

A cynic might suggest that the U.S. gets intelligence access into parts of the world they would otherwise not so easily be allowed.

dashundchen 6y ago

I don't think you are interpreting those links correctly. For 2, where I think you pulled the $67/101 million, appears to be the outstanding balance of assessment including what was unpaid over previous periods. Not familiar with the data but that doesn't sound like the required contributions in a year, it just sounds like the US has the biggest unpaid assessed bill. For 3, I don't see where you obtained those numbers either. The "gross assessment" which I assume is the contribution based on wealth/population is $236 million for the US vs $1076 million total assessed. Again not familiar with the data, I could be wrong. That's how I am reading those documents though.

fermienrico 6y ago
Thanks for the correction. I'll edit the comment.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

How do you do that strikethrough in markdown?

icebraining 6y ago
Using unicode: https://yaytext.com/strike/ https://yaytext.com/strike/