Controversial WHO Regional Director Placed on Indefinite Leave 11/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan WHO South East Asia Regional Director Saima Wazed with Vaidya Kotecha, an Indian Ministry official Saima Wazed, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) controversial regional director for the South East Asia Regional Office (SEARO), is on indefinite leave from Friday (11 July) – four months after Bangladesh’s Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) filed two cases against her for fraud, forgery and misuse of power. WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus notified staff in a brief internal email that Wazed would be on leave from Friday and that WHO Assistant Director-General Dr Catharina Boehme would “serve as the Officer in Charge” in Wazed’s place. Boehme would reach the SEARO office in New Delhi on Tuesday, 15 July, Tedros added. The charges against Wazed, daughter of Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who fled the country last August after protests, stem from her bid to be appointed regional director. Wazed took office in January 2024 but her campaign was shadowed by claim that her influential mother used her influence to ensure her daughter’s election. The ACC investigation into these claims began in January, as previously reported by Health Policy Watch. According to the formal charges, Wazed is alleged to have provided false information about her academic record during her campaign for regional director, violating Section 468 of the Bangladesh Penal Code (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and Section 471 (forging a document). The ACC also alleges she misrepresented her qualifications by claiming an honorary role at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, which the university disputes, to secure her WHO position. The charges were detailed by ACC Deputy Director Akhtarul Islam, Wazed is also accused of having misused her power and influence to collect about $2.8 million from various banks for the Shuchona Foundation, which she used to head. The ACC case did not provide complete details on how the money was then used. Those charges include: allegations of fraud and misuse of power under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property); , as well as Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1947. Since the charges were laid, Wazed has been unable to travel properly in the SEARO region as she faces arrest in Bangladesh. *Additional reporting by Elaine Fletcher. Image Credits: WHO. New Body Adopts Intense Timetable for Final Pandemic Agreement Talks 11/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) co-chairs the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur and Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes. Intense negotiations lie ahead for World Health Organisation (WHO) member states to conclude the missing part of the Pandemic Agreement, after a brief respite since the agreement was adopted by the World Health Assembly in May. A new body, the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), met for the first time this week, and chose Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes and the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur as co-chairs. The IGWG also adopted a tight schedule to achieve its key task: negotiating an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. Member states have until 10 August to submit proposals on what they want to see in the annex, which will flesh out Article 12 of the agreement. According to Article 12, the IGWG needs to develop provisions to govern the PABS System, “including definitions of pathogens with pandemic potential and PABS materials and sequence information, modalities, legal nature, terms and conditions, and operational dimensions”. Aside from the PABS system annex, the IGWG will also prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. September meetings An informal IGWG meeting is planned for 12 September, with the next formal meeting from 15-19 September. The IGWG Bureau, the administrative body overseeing the talks, is also compiling a list of experts to assist with negotiations. These will also be circulated to member states. Experts are essential for this part of the talks, which are complex given that the annex will need to harmonise with several international agreements covering intellectual property and trade, as well as the Nagoya Protocol, which determines how to share the benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources fairly and equitably. Dr Mike Ryan addresses the IGWG meeting, his final pandemic negotiations meeting before he leaves WHO in September. Speaking at the conclusion of the first IGWG meeting, WHO outgoing Assistant Director-General Dr Mike Ryan described the annex as the “core” and “engine house” of the pandemic agreement. “You are beginning a really important process with difficult miles ahead diplomatically,” said Ryan, who revealed that the meeting was his last on the pandemic agreement negotiations as he leaves the WHO in September. “You are constructing a platform that will save countless lives,” said Ryan, who added that he had “huge hope” that the talks would succeed – although member states will have to “go at it” to conclude by April 2026 in time for the World Health Assembly. Earlier in the week, the Pandemic Action Network (PAN) and partners urged the IGWG negotiators to “keep up momentum and adopt a PABS Annex at the next World Health Assembly”. They described the annex as critical “to advance equitable access to outbreak and pandemic medical countermeasures, and an essential step to advance the promise and potential of the pandemic agreement”. They urged negotiators to bring in experts from public health and environmental, align early on priority themes and core structure, and tackle the toughest issues first. “We appreciate the idea of a structured template to gather proposed texts, and stress that strategically timed meetings and well-used informal and intra-sessional opportunities will be essential to achieve a May 2026 deadline,” said the group in a press statement released by PAN, the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention, Spark Street Advisors and Helen Clark, co-chair of The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Football is about health. Big Soda is not 11/07/2025 Lindsey Smith Taillie Sugary drinks are significant drivers of obesity and diabetes. At the 2025 Club World Cup, the world’s most celebrated footballers – from global icons to rising stars – are showcasing their elite athleticism and passion for the game. But as stars like Lionel Messi take center stage, there is one name that doesn’t belong anywhere near the pitch: Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola has partnered with global football body FIFA since 1978 and has been a ubiquitous presence at this year’s Club World Cup. FIFA’s football tournaments are a premier platform for showcasing health and fitness, while Coke is the largest global manufacturer of soft drinks, a top driver of the world’s twin epidemics: obesity and diabetes. Coca-Cola should not be sharing the spotlight with football players and using their achievements to “sportswash” away soda’s harms. It’s easy to see why not. Four of the five brands under Coke’s umbrella contain high levels of added sugar or artificial sweeteners. A single 20 oz bottle of Minute Maid Lemonade contains 67 grams of added sugar, over 100% of what a typical adult should consume in a day. Liquid sugar is especially damaging. It causes dental caries, weight gain and increases many health risks. Our bodies don’t respond to liquid calories the same way as food calories: they do not make us feel full, leading us to consume more. Additionally, there’s increasing scientific evidence to suggest sugar is addictive: it affects the brain in a manner similar to cocaine and can lead to increasing intake, withdrawal and cravings. The health harms of sugary drinks start young. Big Soda companies hook kids on their products through pervasive marketing tactics used in schools, during kids’ sports and on screens. As a result, over half of American children consume sugary drinks daily. And because dietary behaviors set in childhood track into adulthood, these early preferences set kids up for lifetimes of unhealthy eating. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are amongst the worst plastic polluters in the world. Big Soda also devastates our environment. Along with PepsiCo, Coke is one of the largest plastic polluters in the world. According to the University of California, per liter, soda uses 27 times more water and produces 11 times more greenhouse gas emissions than the equivalent amount of tap water. Yet, Big Soda has tried to frame itself as “part of the solution.” For decades, it’s promoted physical activity as a solution to obesity, ignoring data that it’s nearly impossible to out-exercise a bad diet. Beverage companies have interfered with scientific research and professional nutritional organizations, obfuscating the true health impacts of their products. And by positioning themselves as “helpful,” they have actively fought against public policies to reduce sugary drink consumption. Along with “sports” and “health washing,” Big Soda employs “greenwashing,” or framing damaging products as helping, not harming, the environment. At the 2024 Olympic Games, where Coca-Cola was a leading sponsor, the soda giant claimed to be an environmental champion by halving the number of plastic bottles used at previous Olympics. While seemingly offering nine million drinks in reuseable, returnable eco-cups, 75% of these drinks came from plastic bottles poured into eco-cups. At best, this type of “greenwashing” is misleading to consumers and at worst, threatens to exacerbate the pollution crisis. These companies also use emotion to push product sales. Coke’s 2022 World Cup advertisement featured people from around the world celebrating amid a flurry of confetti, which outwardly has nothing to do with soda. Coke chose to capitalize on the emotions the World Cup incites: hope, joy and a sense of social connection that is increasingly rare. It profits from this emotional appeal by selling us products that are harmful for our health and planet. Football is bigger than ever. The 2022 FIFA World Cup drew a cumulative audience of over 5 billion, with the final alone watched by 1.5 million people. With this massive reach comes increased responsibility to engage in ethical, transparent practices that don’t cause health and environmental harm. If we expect our athletes to play fair, so should FIFA. But the tide is turning. The Kick Big Soda Out of Sport campaign, led by global health advocates and organizations, is mounting an opposition to Big Soda’s sports sponsorships. As the 2025 Club World Cup games are being played across the U.S., the Kick Big Soda Out movement is demanding FIFA end its partnership with Coca-Cola. Over 350,000 people, alongside 97 health and environmental organizations have already pledged their support. The spotlight isn’t only on the players—it’s on FIFA too. Will it continue to hijack the global stage for profit, or will it take a stand for the health of fans, players and the planet? The facts are clear. It’s time to ban Big Soda in sport. Lindsey Smith Taillie, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a nutrition epidemiologist focused on designing and evaluating healthy food policies. Image Credits: Vital Strategies. World Health Organization Advances Deep Staff Cuts – Unclear How Strategic Priorities Will be Reflected 10/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Raul Thomas, the Assistant Director-General for Business Operations at the World Health Assembly in May, where member states approved a stripped-down $4.2 billion budget for 2026-27 – for which the agency is still short $1.7 billion in funds. The World Health Organization has reduced its global headcount by about 221 people since January, down to 9,231 as compared to 9452 at the start of January – largely through a termination of temporary contracts and a freeze in renewals. Most of the cutbacks have been at the Geneva Headquarters, WHO’s largest office, where 2,938 positions in January 2025, shrunk to about 2,782 as of July. Cuts in staff from January – July 2025 at WHO’s Geneva Headquarters. Another 194 staff worldwide are expected to leave in coming weeks, due to voluntary retirement and initial separations, according to a presentation made by senior WHO officials to staff at a global “Town Hall” on Thursday. But this remains a drop in the bucket of what is likely to come next – with potential retrenchment of some 20% of staff globally, and even more at headquarters, according to previous WHO modeling estimates. Even after the initial $150-165 million in payroll savings as well as another $140-260 million in travel and procurement cuts this year – the Organization still needs to reduce spending by another $390-490 million by year’s end in order to meet a $4.2 billion budget target for the 2026-2027 biennium. And that $4.2 billion two-year budget also remains underfunded – with an estimated $1.7 billion revenue gap as of May. Macro view of the $800 million budget cut needed to reach the new $4.2 billion budget target for 2026-2027 – providing that money can in fact be raised. After Headquarters, WHO’s African Region has the largest number of staff positions – and also faces the largest salary gap for 2025, according to other previously published data. But it, along with several other WHO regions, has hardly begun the retrenchment process, to date – even though new organizational plans have by now been designed. The AFRO headcount has declined by a mere 47 people – from 2,561 in January to 2,514 as of July, data shared at the meeting Thursday indicated. Salary gap by region for 2025 as presented to WHO member states in March, shows more than half of the deficit is in headquarters. In the case of the WHO Regional Office of the Americas/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), decisions on staff cuts remain formally suspended until September – by which time the Trump administration is expected to make a final decision on whether it will continue to fund PAHO, which it co-founded over a century ago. PAHO operates as a semi-autonomous entity from WHO -with a separate governing body and a budget 70% funded by member states in the Americas region. The decision of the United States, WHO’s largest donor, to withdraw from the WHO global entity in January, didn’t technically apply to PAHO, whose relationship with the US is being deliberated separately in Washington DC. Hard work begins – matching and mapping rank and file staff On 1 July, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the appointment of 36 directors at the Geneva Headquarters to oversee a consolidated set of programme departments – whose numbers have been slashed by nearly half. See related story. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Chief Names New Team of Directors – Mostly Familiar Faces At Thursday’s Town Hall, Tedros and senior management also unveiled the first concrete set of proposals to move some WHO/Geneva teams and departments to other, less expensive locations. Those include the relocation of: some Health Emergencies functions to Dubai; laboratory surveillance to WHO pandemic surveillance hub in Berlin; and certain financial and Human Resources functions to Lyon, France, where WHO already has an office. A series of staff consultations will now take place on the plan, before a final decision is made, the WHO leadership said. Relocation of key offices – proposals to be discussed with WHO staff in coming weeks. Following these moves, however, the really hard work is beginning to map positions at department level – and then “map” existing staff. Against this massive challenge, many staff seem unclear about how strategically linked-up the new department organization is to WHO strategic priorities, to date. In WHO’s Geneva Headquarters, for instance, some staff expressed concerns that the traditional “vertical” infectious disease departments would still fare better than departments covering a wide range of less well-funded topics, such as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)- which nonetheless represent the majority of the world’s disease burden today. “I’m worried that there won’t be a fresh look at priorities in line with the General Programme of Work,” one staff member observed, noting that the first two priorities of the GPW are 1) climate change response and 2) so-called environmental and lifestyle risks that are the “root causes” of ill health. At present, such priorities are not well reflected in current WHO staffing balances, another scientist observed: “For instance, TB, alone, is a department of about 55 staff; HIV, Hepatitis and other Sexually Transmitted Infections also has roughly 55 staff and consultants – and at the same time, you have GAVI, UNAIDS and The Global Fund covering many of these same priorities.” “In the NCDs team, on the other hand, you have about 50 staff. But they deal with all of the major NCDs that represent 74% of the world’s disease burden, including cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancers, oral and eye health, as well as disability and rehabilitation.” In WHO’s European Region giving up on communicable diseases and cancer? Macro view of the new European Regional Office structure with three main programme divisions overall, and Health Security absorbing key disease control actitivities including AMR. Meanwhile, some staff in WHO’s European region voiced somewhat different concerns. In contrast to headquarters, where infectious and noncommunicable dieseases (NCDs) are now part of the same division, most of the EURO regions’s infectious disease teams, as well as AMR, have been dismantled and merged into the Region’s Health Security division – which traditionally focused on emergencies. “The current proposed organigram eliminates dedicated, unique units, and teams in HIV, TB and viral hepatitis and anti-microbial resistance,” one EURO team member, who asked to remain anonymous, noted. “The fact that communicable diseases have been shrunk, this is a major strategic pitfall, and goes against the European Programme of Work,” the staff member added, noting the high rates of TB, HIV and hepatitis in the EURO Region’s eastern and central Asian member states. “It also eliminates teams in cancer, cardiovascular disease and metabolic diseases,” the team member noted. “I think the worrying, the worrying aspect is some of these are actually, if you take, for example, cardiovascular disease, cancer and AMR, these are diseases that kill the most based on the data we have. And they will become bigger and bigger health challenges. “So the organization is either completely dropping or downsizing the effort and investment on this, on these topics, while at the same time keeping a very big Emergencies Programme, which also seems to be the one that had the highest deficit.” BCG and the consultancy conundrum Notes: Includes FTEs for APWs and Consultants; Assumes each SSA is a FTE because no other equivalent is provided in the HR reports. Along with staff cuts, senior WHO officials said that they are cutting back on contracts for consultants but without presenting any supporting data on that measurement. The number of consultants has swelled exponentially, pushing out regular staff positions in many case. However, without further former disclosures, concrete data on actual consultancy numbers is only likely to become available at the end December, when the bi-annual public HR database is updated. Meanwhile, WHO officials did not deny that a new $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group to support the next phases of the global reorganization, is pending in WHO’s global management system, as per an exclusive Health Policy Watch report, published Wednesday. WHO’s head of business operations, Raul Thomas, said that the Organization is re-evaluating the pending contract in light of recent news reports about the involvement of two former BCG staff with the highly controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distribution scheme as well as another Gaza population relocation plan. “Indeed, this has come to our attention, and we are having discussions with BCG. We are very alarmed at what we have read. They are having an external review,” Thomas said. “And between now, and I would say the end of next week, the organization will take a decision on whether or not we’ll proceed with engaging with BCG. “But it is under careful consideration,” he said, adding that senior management were “alarmed” about the reports that appeared to be in “contravention of the values of the organization.” At the same time, other staff have said that regardless of reputational issues at stake, large and expensive consultancy contracts divert resources from the funding of staff positions – in a setting where every $1 million spent on external consultancies could fund 3-5 rank-and-file WHO staff for about a year. See related story here: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/exclusive-who-has-a-new-4-2-million-contract-pending-with-boston-consulting-group/ Image Credits: WHO Town Hall, 10 July , WHO , https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/about-us/general-programme-of-work/who-strategy-2025-2028-at-a-glance.pdf?sfvrsn=de60054d_3, WHO, European Region . Millions at Risk of HIV Infection and Death After US Funding Cuts, Warns UNAIDS 10/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan Luyengo Clinic in Eswatini. PEPFAR funded 80% of the clinic’s running cost, and the HIV treatment of 3,000 people is now in jeopardy. An additional six million new HIV infections and four million AIDS-related deaths could occur between 2025 and 2029 if US-supported HIV treatment and prevention services collapse, according to UNAIDS. “This is not just a funding gap. It’s a ticking time bomb,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima at the launch of the organisation’s 2025 global AIDS update on Thursday. “We have seen services vanish overnight. Health workers have been sent home. And people – especially children and key populations – are being pushed out of care.” “Key populations” refer to people most vulnerable to HIV infection, including sex workers, men to have sex with men, people who inject drugs and young women. Some of the immediate effects of the US withdrawal of funds since Donald Trump assumed the presidency in January include the closure of health facilities, healthworker job losses, and disrupted treatment, testing and prevention services. Impact of aid cuts on HIV infections and deaths The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) had committed $4.3 billion in bilateral support in 2025 and “those services were stopped overnight when the US government shifted its foreign assistance strategies,” notes the UNAIDS report. PEPFAR had supported HIV testing for 84.1 million people and HIV treatment for 20.6 million people. “Disruptions are being felt across the HIV response and pose a huge risk of increased mortality, a surge of new HIV infections, and the development of resistance to the most commonly used treatment regimens.” In Mozambique, for example, over 30,000 health personnel have lost their jobs. UNAIDS itself faces huge job losses, and is reducing its Geneva head office staff from 127 to a mere 19 employees, according to a report this week by Geneva Solutions. The UN agency’s restructuring plan will cut staff by 54% globally, leaving 280 staff worldwide. HIV prevention programmes hit hard Country reliance on aid for HIV prevention. External funding financed almost 80% of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, 66% in the Caribbean and 60% in the Middle East and North Africa, according to UNAIDS. PEPFAR alone reached 2.3 million adolescent girls and young women with comprehensive HIV prevention services in 2024 and enabled 2.5 million people to use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Many of these programmes have now stopped completely, according to UNAIDS. PrEP involves taking medication to prevent HIV infection and is usually taken by people at high risk of infection, and PEPFAR funded over 90% of PrEP initiations globally in 2024. “Countries are reporting limited availability of PrEP and reduced activities to prevent new HIV acquisitions, including among adolescent girls and young women,” said UNAIDS. In Nigeria, budget cuts have reduced PrEP initiation from 40,000 to 6000 people per month. At the end of 2024, just before a sudden collapse in funding, new HIV infections had been reduced by 40% and AIDS-related deaths by 56% since 2010, Byanyima notes in the report. Countries had also reduced the annual number of children acquiring HIV from their mothers by 62% to 120,000 since 2010. However, prevention efforts were already flatlining before the withdrawal of US aid. In 2024, there were 1.3 million new infections, which was almost the same as the year before. “Over 210,000 girls and young women aged 15 to 24 acquired HIV in 2024 – an average of 570 new infections every day,” according to the UNAIDS report. In 2024, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related causes, 61% of them in sub-Saharan Africa. “Community-led services, which are vital to reaching marginalised populations, are being defunded at alarming rates,” said UNAIDS. “In early 2025, over 60% of women-led HIV organisations surveyed had lost funding or were forced to suspend services.” Domestic budgets inadequate Only 25 of the 60 low- and middle-income countries included in the report have increased their domestic budgets for HIV in 2026. The average increase amounts to 8%, approximately $180 million in additional domestic resources. “This is promising, but not sufficient to replace the scale of international funding in countries that are heavily reliant,” UNAIDS notes. “It is important for donors to recognize that the option of increasing domestic HIV funding is not immediately or equally available to all countries,” UNAIDS notes. “Combinations of debt distress, slow economic growth and underperforming tax systems leave many countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, with limited fiscal space to increase their domestic funding for HIV. “ It cites the recent International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville in Spain, as offering a way forward with “calls for debt relief, international tax cooperation and reform of international financial institutions”. These measure would provide “the first steps towards a new economic settlement that can give countries the fiscal space needed to invest in the global HIV response”, UNAIDS notes. “Urgent action and revived solidarity are needed to sustain the progress made and prevent a resurgence of HIV.” Image Credits: UNAIDS. After Ebola and Bombings, What Has the World Learned? 10/07/2025 Health Policy Watch Dr Joanne Liu, a veteran humanitarian and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has seen the front lines of global health crises—from Ebola in West Africa to bombed-out hospitals in Afghanistan. But her message today is clear: “An imperfect solution is better than no solution.” Speaking on the Global Health Matters podcast, Liu reflected on the values that shaped her career, the lessons learned during her years at MSF, and her call for renewed global solidarity. “Young people come into my ER and tell me they don’t want to live any more,” she said. “They feel trapped in a cruel and unfair world. I want to convince them it’s better to fight than give up.” In her new book, Ebola, Bombs, and Migrants, Liu recounts how fear and political interests often override humanitarian needs. She recalled how the world ignored West Africa’s Ebola crisis until the virus reached Europe and the U.S. “States don’t have friends—they have interests,” she said. Liu also discussed the devastating U.S. airstrike on MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed 42 people. “We called everyone—the Pentagon, the UN—but no one stopped it,” she said. The attack pushed MSF to campaign for stronger protections for medical missions. Liu is now focused on shifting the power dynamics within global health. “For every international staff member, there are nine or ten locally hired,” she said. “We need to rebalance who holds influence.” Despite setbacks, Liu remains hopeful. “There is beauty everywhere,” she said. “It’s action that brings hope, and hope that brings action.” Listen to more episodes of the Global Health Matters podcast on Health Policy Watch. Image Credits: Global Health Matters podcast. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Has a New $4.2 million Contract Pending with Boston Consulting Group 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly in May, where WHO member states approved a stripped-down base budget of $4.2 billion for the next two years (2026-27). The World Health Organization has a draft $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group pending in its Global Management System (GSM), Health Policy Watch has learned – even while Save the Children has suspended its connection to BCG, over the reported involvement of two former staff members in the development of controversial projects in Gaza. If approved and executed, the new WHO contract would be the second one in six months to be awarded to BCG. Some $2,849,745 was spent by WHO on the Boston-based consultancy between 7 April and 15 May, according to GSM records seen by Health Policy Watch – to support the first phase of WHO’s massive restructuring. The WHO reorganization has been triggered by the January withdrawal of WHO’s largest donor, the United States, and a subsequent budget crisis that left a $1.7 billion hole in WHO’s planned $4.2 billion base budget [not including emergencies] for the next two years (2026-2027). The initial BCG consultancy was disclosed by Health Policy Watch in April, after it was discussed at a WHO ‘Town Hall’ convened by senior management. At the time, WHO Staff Association President Catherine Kirorei Corsini told WHO colleagues that the consultancy was being financed by “voluntary and earmarked funding from Bill and Melinda Gates…. And this because it’s voluntary and earmarked, it cannot be used for anything else.” Her remarks were confirmed later by a WHO spokesperson. Continuation of a second phase Sampling disease-carrying mosquitos in Latin America; fears that pending budget cuts will gut the rank and file WHO staff first of all. But according to the terms of reference attached to the first BCG contract, seen by Health Policy Watch, the $2.849 million consultancy that ran from 7 April-15 May, was only “Phase 1”, to be followed by a longer and larger Phase 2 that would further “implementation” of HR restructuring “to support long-term strategic objectives” as well as support “procurement savings to maximize cost-efficiency.” Should that second contract for $4.295 million be approved, that would make for a massive $7.144 million in consultancy awards to the firm over a period of less than a year. Asked to comment on the pending continuation of the work to a second phase, the amounts involved, or the issues around the past activities of BCG staff or former staff in Gaza, WHO did not respond as of publication time. BCG also did not respond to queries by Health Policy Watch. However, regardless of reputational issues, WHO staff have also questioned why the organization should be spending millions on external consultants to advise on its reorganization – at a time when its also facing massive staff cuts. Save the Children suspension Save the Children Clinic in Deir al Balah, northern Gaza. The organization has a network of humanitarian operations across the war-torn enclave. On Tuesday, Save the Children reportedly “suspended” its decades-long relationship with BCG, citing “utterly unacceptable” work on Gaza-related projects – including a plan to relocate about a quarter of Gaza Palestinians out of the enclave following a cease-fire, a decision reported by The New Humanitarian. “We suspended our work with BCG on June 13 and we are now awaiting the outcome of their review,” Save the Children spokesperson Belinda Goldsmith was quoted saying in an email to TNH on 8 July. Save the Children’s decision followed a report last Friday by the Financial Times that BCG had “modeled” the costs of relocating Palestinians out of Gaza as part of a politically controversial post-war reconstruction plan. Breaking news: Boston Consulting Group modelled the costs of ‘relocating’ Palestinians from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch a new aid scheme for the shattered enclave https://t.co/VsVK7igBQQ pic.twitter.com/GObRV5qQHq — Financial Times (@FT) July 4, 2025 Earlier in June, the FT also reported that BCG staff had also been involved in the early stages of planning for the conflict-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Israeli and US-supported entity that began distributing food aid in Gaza last month tried to sidestep UN aid channels, but soon became mired in controversy as hundreds of Palestinians were killed traveling to and from the Foundation’s four distribution sides over the past several weeks. In an 8 July email to all staff, Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing referred to the FT’s reporting on BCG’s involvement with the controversial GHF and “modelling a plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians from Gaza” as “utterly unacceptable”, TNH reported. “Following that, we suspended all ongoing work with BCG pending the outcome of their external investigation and asked all Member teams to do the same,” wrote Ashing, to national-level Save the Children organisations. BCG has repudiated its connection to controversial Gaza projects Only the most able-bodied can run the gauntlet to reach Gaza’s food distribution points, which include four GHF outposts and scattered UN delivery points. In a response dubbed “correcting the record” Sunday, 6 July, BCG said that two former partners had engaged secretly in a Gaza post-conflict evacuation cost assessment – without BCG’s knowledge. “Recent media reporting has misrepresented BCG’s role in post-war Gaza reconstruction,” BCG stated. “Two former partners initiated this work, even though the lead partner was categorically told not to. This work was not a BCG project. It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. We fully disavow this work. BCG was not paid for any of this work. As for the earlier work in relation to the GHF, BCG said that: “In October 2024, a BCG team from the U.S., led by two partners, provided pro bono support to help establish an aid organization intended to operate alongside other relief efforts to deliver humanitarian support to Gaza. They failed to disclose the full nature of the work. These individuals then carried out subsequent unauthorized work. “Their actions reflected a serious failure of judgment and adherence to our standards. “We are shocked and outraged by the actions of these two partners. They have been exited from the firm. BCG disavows the work they undertook. It has been stopped, and BCG has not and will not be paid for any of their work. “We are acting with urgency and seriousness to learn from this and to ensure it does not happen again,” BCG added. “We deeply regret that in this situation we did not live up to our standards. We are committed to living our values—with accountability for our failures and humility in how we move forward.” Image Credits: Wikipedia , WHO/Pierre Albouy, PAHO/WHO, Save the Children , X/Channel 4 . NIH-funded Human Trials Outside US Get Temporary Funding Reprieve 09/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A trial participant is prepared for a blood test as part of a trial of new TB drugs that can overcome drug resistant pathogens. Several HIV and TB trials were suspended following recent changes in US policy. Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a result, some clinical trials on humans were halted midway despite dangers to trial participants and the huge waste of money. However, the payment freeze to several NIH subawardees in South Africa was recently lifted, according the journal, Science, which reported that “an alternative payment scheme … could allow those studies to continue”. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become a “preferred site” for HIV and tuberculosis research, both because of its high burden of HIV and TB and the excellence of its scientific community, according to Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, head of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). It has been disproportionately affected by the NIH’s change in policy towards subawards, which jeopardised at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials, according to an analysis by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 2024, the NIH funded about 3,600 foreign subawards worth more than $400 million, according to Science. The NIH wants to control allocations to foreign research groups, stipulating that they will need to apply directly to NIH for grants, not go via third parties. However, it will only have the new award procedures in place by 30 September, leaving thousands of research projects in limbo. Explaining its position in an announcement on 1 May, the NIH said that it wants to “maintain strong, productive, and secure foreign collaborations” and “ensure it can transparently and reliably report on each dollar spent”. As a result, NIH “is establishing a new award structure that will prohibit foreign subawards from being nested under the parent grant. This new award structure will include a prime with independent awards that are linked to the prime that will allow NIH to track the project’s funds individually,” according to the announcement. However, it now appears to have made exceptions for clinical trials involving people in the interim. “Staff guidance dated 30 June maintains that grant renewal and new applications including a foreign subaward submitted after 1 May will not be reviewed until the new tracking system is in place,” according to Science. “But the document describes an exception for human subject research in applications submitted earlier, and for ongoing human studies. As a temporary measure, NIH grants staff can convert the subawards within these projects to special ‘supplements’ to the main grant that will go directly to the foreign collaborator, the document says.” NIH official Michelle Bulls informed grants staff in a memo on 27 June that, although no new awards can be made to South Africa, “existing subawards with clinical research can continue under the new ‘supplement’ plan… and ongoing prime awards to South African researchers, which make up about 100 of the country’s NIH grants, ‘may proceed’,” according to Science. Prof Ian Sanne, co-principal investigator of the Wits HIV Research Group Clinical Trials Unit, earlier described navigating the US funding cuts as a “major regulatory and ethics nightmare”. One of the studies Sanne oversaw that was terminated involved a trial of microbicide rings filled with slow-release antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV that were inserted vaginally in trial participants, many of whom were at high risk of HIV infection. However, restarting the research is not a simple matter as, in the two-month pause in NIH payments, trial participants have dispersed and research staff have been retrenched. In addition, there is no guarantee that current subawards will qualify for awards under the new system. NIH targets journal fees Meanwhile, the NIH announced this week that it was cracking down on “excessive publisher fees for publicly funded research”. The NIH claimed that “some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. “For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.” In 2026, the NIH will introduce a cap on “allowable publication costs” (APC) to ensure that publication fees “remain reasonable across the research ecosystem”. “This policy marks a critical step in protecting the integrity of the scientific publishing system while ensuring that public investments in research deliver maximum public benefit,” said NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Image Credits: TB Alliance. Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
New Body Adopts Intense Timetable for Final Pandemic Agreement Talks 11/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) co-chairs the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur and Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes. Intense negotiations lie ahead for World Health Organisation (WHO) member states to conclude the missing part of the Pandemic Agreement, after a brief respite since the agreement was adopted by the World Health Assembly in May. A new body, the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), met for the first time this week, and chose Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes and the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur as co-chairs. The IGWG also adopted a tight schedule to achieve its key task: negotiating an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. Member states have until 10 August to submit proposals on what they want to see in the annex, which will flesh out Article 12 of the agreement. According to Article 12, the IGWG needs to develop provisions to govern the PABS System, “including definitions of pathogens with pandemic potential and PABS materials and sequence information, modalities, legal nature, terms and conditions, and operational dimensions”. Aside from the PABS system annex, the IGWG will also prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. September meetings An informal IGWG meeting is planned for 12 September, with the next formal meeting from 15-19 September. The IGWG Bureau, the administrative body overseeing the talks, is also compiling a list of experts to assist with negotiations. These will also be circulated to member states. Experts are essential for this part of the talks, which are complex given that the annex will need to harmonise with several international agreements covering intellectual property and trade, as well as the Nagoya Protocol, which determines how to share the benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources fairly and equitably. Dr Mike Ryan addresses the IGWG meeting, his final pandemic negotiations meeting before he leaves WHO in September. Speaking at the conclusion of the first IGWG meeting, WHO outgoing Assistant Director-General Dr Mike Ryan described the annex as the “core” and “engine house” of the pandemic agreement. “You are beginning a really important process with difficult miles ahead diplomatically,” said Ryan, who revealed that the meeting was his last on the pandemic agreement negotiations as he leaves the WHO in September. “You are constructing a platform that will save countless lives,” said Ryan, who added that he had “huge hope” that the talks would succeed – although member states will have to “go at it” to conclude by April 2026 in time for the World Health Assembly. Earlier in the week, the Pandemic Action Network (PAN) and partners urged the IGWG negotiators to “keep up momentum and adopt a PABS Annex at the next World Health Assembly”. They described the annex as critical “to advance equitable access to outbreak and pandemic medical countermeasures, and an essential step to advance the promise and potential of the pandemic agreement”. They urged negotiators to bring in experts from public health and environmental, align early on priority themes and core structure, and tackle the toughest issues first. “We appreciate the idea of a structured template to gather proposed texts, and stress that strategically timed meetings and well-used informal and intra-sessional opportunities will be essential to achieve a May 2026 deadline,” said the group in a press statement released by PAN, the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention, Spark Street Advisors and Helen Clark, co-chair of The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Football is about health. Big Soda is not 11/07/2025 Lindsey Smith Taillie Sugary drinks are significant drivers of obesity and diabetes. At the 2025 Club World Cup, the world’s most celebrated footballers – from global icons to rising stars – are showcasing their elite athleticism and passion for the game. But as stars like Lionel Messi take center stage, there is one name that doesn’t belong anywhere near the pitch: Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola has partnered with global football body FIFA since 1978 and has been a ubiquitous presence at this year’s Club World Cup. FIFA’s football tournaments are a premier platform for showcasing health and fitness, while Coke is the largest global manufacturer of soft drinks, a top driver of the world’s twin epidemics: obesity and diabetes. Coca-Cola should not be sharing the spotlight with football players and using their achievements to “sportswash” away soda’s harms. It’s easy to see why not. Four of the five brands under Coke’s umbrella contain high levels of added sugar or artificial sweeteners. A single 20 oz bottle of Minute Maid Lemonade contains 67 grams of added sugar, over 100% of what a typical adult should consume in a day. Liquid sugar is especially damaging. It causes dental caries, weight gain and increases many health risks. Our bodies don’t respond to liquid calories the same way as food calories: they do not make us feel full, leading us to consume more. Additionally, there’s increasing scientific evidence to suggest sugar is addictive: it affects the brain in a manner similar to cocaine and can lead to increasing intake, withdrawal and cravings. The health harms of sugary drinks start young. Big Soda companies hook kids on their products through pervasive marketing tactics used in schools, during kids’ sports and on screens. As a result, over half of American children consume sugary drinks daily. And because dietary behaviors set in childhood track into adulthood, these early preferences set kids up for lifetimes of unhealthy eating. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are amongst the worst plastic polluters in the world. Big Soda also devastates our environment. Along with PepsiCo, Coke is one of the largest plastic polluters in the world. According to the University of California, per liter, soda uses 27 times more water and produces 11 times more greenhouse gas emissions than the equivalent amount of tap water. Yet, Big Soda has tried to frame itself as “part of the solution.” For decades, it’s promoted physical activity as a solution to obesity, ignoring data that it’s nearly impossible to out-exercise a bad diet. Beverage companies have interfered with scientific research and professional nutritional organizations, obfuscating the true health impacts of their products. And by positioning themselves as “helpful,” they have actively fought against public policies to reduce sugary drink consumption. Along with “sports” and “health washing,” Big Soda employs “greenwashing,” or framing damaging products as helping, not harming, the environment. At the 2024 Olympic Games, where Coca-Cola was a leading sponsor, the soda giant claimed to be an environmental champion by halving the number of plastic bottles used at previous Olympics. While seemingly offering nine million drinks in reuseable, returnable eco-cups, 75% of these drinks came from plastic bottles poured into eco-cups. At best, this type of “greenwashing” is misleading to consumers and at worst, threatens to exacerbate the pollution crisis. These companies also use emotion to push product sales. Coke’s 2022 World Cup advertisement featured people from around the world celebrating amid a flurry of confetti, which outwardly has nothing to do with soda. Coke chose to capitalize on the emotions the World Cup incites: hope, joy and a sense of social connection that is increasingly rare. It profits from this emotional appeal by selling us products that are harmful for our health and planet. Football is bigger than ever. The 2022 FIFA World Cup drew a cumulative audience of over 5 billion, with the final alone watched by 1.5 million people. With this massive reach comes increased responsibility to engage in ethical, transparent practices that don’t cause health and environmental harm. If we expect our athletes to play fair, so should FIFA. But the tide is turning. The Kick Big Soda Out of Sport campaign, led by global health advocates and organizations, is mounting an opposition to Big Soda’s sports sponsorships. As the 2025 Club World Cup games are being played across the U.S., the Kick Big Soda Out movement is demanding FIFA end its partnership with Coca-Cola. Over 350,000 people, alongside 97 health and environmental organizations have already pledged their support. The spotlight isn’t only on the players—it’s on FIFA too. Will it continue to hijack the global stage for profit, or will it take a stand for the health of fans, players and the planet? The facts are clear. It’s time to ban Big Soda in sport. Lindsey Smith Taillie, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a nutrition epidemiologist focused on designing and evaluating healthy food policies. Image Credits: Vital Strategies. World Health Organization Advances Deep Staff Cuts – Unclear How Strategic Priorities Will be Reflected 10/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Raul Thomas, the Assistant Director-General for Business Operations at the World Health Assembly in May, where member states approved a stripped-down $4.2 billion budget for 2026-27 – for which the agency is still short $1.7 billion in funds. The World Health Organization has reduced its global headcount by about 221 people since January, down to 9,231 as compared to 9452 at the start of January – largely through a termination of temporary contracts and a freeze in renewals. Most of the cutbacks have been at the Geneva Headquarters, WHO’s largest office, where 2,938 positions in January 2025, shrunk to about 2,782 as of July. Cuts in staff from January – July 2025 at WHO’s Geneva Headquarters. Another 194 staff worldwide are expected to leave in coming weeks, due to voluntary retirement and initial separations, according to a presentation made by senior WHO officials to staff at a global “Town Hall” on Thursday. But this remains a drop in the bucket of what is likely to come next – with potential retrenchment of some 20% of staff globally, and even more at headquarters, according to previous WHO modeling estimates. Even after the initial $150-165 million in payroll savings as well as another $140-260 million in travel and procurement cuts this year – the Organization still needs to reduce spending by another $390-490 million by year’s end in order to meet a $4.2 billion budget target for the 2026-2027 biennium. And that $4.2 billion two-year budget also remains underfunded – with an estimated $1.7 billion revenue gap as of May. Macro view of the $800 million budget cut needed to reach the new $4.2 billion budget target for 2026-2027 – providing that money can in fact be raised. After Headquarters, WHO’s African Region has the largest number of staff positions – and also faces the largest salary gap for 2025, according to other previously published data. But it, along with several other WHO regions, has hardly begun the retrenchment process, to date – even though new organizational plans have by now been designed. The AFRO headcount has declined by a mere 47 people – from 2,561 in January to 2,514 as of July, data shared at the meeting Thursday indicated. Salary gap by region for 2025 as presented to WHO member states in March, shows more than half of the deficit is in headquarters. In the case of the WHO Regional Office of the Americas/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), decisions on staff cuts remain formally suspended until September – by which time the Trump administration is expected to make a final decision on whether it will continue to fund PAHO, which it co-founded over a century ago. PAHO operates as a semi-autonomous entity from WHO -with a separate governing body and a budget 70% funded by member states in the Americas region. The decision of the United States, WHO’s largest donor, to withdraw from the WHO global entity in January, didn’t technically apply to PAHO, whose relationship with the US is being deliberated separately in Washington DC. Hard work begins – matching and mapping rank and file staff On 1 July, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the appointment of 36 directors at the Geneva Headquarters to oversee a consolidated set of programme departments – whose numbers have been slashed by nearly half. See related story. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Chief Names New Team of Directors – Mostly Familiar Faces At Thursday’s Town Hall, Tedros and senior management also unveiled the first concrete set of proposals to move some WHO/Geneva teams and departments to other, less expensive locations. Those include the relocation of: some Health Emergencies functions to Dubai; laboratory surveillance to WHO pandemic surveillance hub in Berlin; and certain financial and Human Resources functions to Lyon, France, where WHO already has an office. A series of staff consultations will now take place on the plan, before a final decision is made, the WHO leadership said. Relocation of key offices – proposals to be discussed with WHO staff in coming weeks. Following these moves, however, the really hard work is beginning to map positions at department level – and then “map” existing staff. Against this massive challenge, many staff seem unclear about how strategically linked-up the new department organization is to WHO strategic priorities, to date. In WHO’s Geneva Headquarters, for instance, some staff expressed concerns that the traditional “vertical” infectious disease departments would still fare better than departments covering a wide range of less well-funded topics, such as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)- which nonetheless represent the majority of the world’s disease burden today. “I’m worried that there won’t be a fresh look at priorities in line with the General Programme of Work,” one staff member observed, noting that the first two priorities of the GPW are 1) climate change response and 2) so-called environmental and lifestyle risks that are the “root causes” of ill health. At present, such priorities are not well reflected in current WHO staffing balances, another scientist observed: “For instance, TB, alone, is a department of about 55 staff; HIV, Hepatitis and other Sexually Transmitted Infections also has roughly 55 staff and consultants – and at the same time, you have GAVI, UNAIDS and The Global Fund covering many of these same priorities.” “In the NCDs team, on the other hand, you have about 50 staff. But they deal with all of the major NCDs that represent 74% of the world’s disease burden, including cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancers, oral and eye health, as well as disability and rehabilitation.” In WHO’s European Region giving up on communicable diseases and cancer? Macro view of the new European Regional Office structure with three main programme divisions overall, and Health Security absorbing key disease control actitivities including AMR. Meanwhile, some staff in WHO’s European region voiced somewhat different concerns. In contrast to headquarters, where infectious and noncommunicable dieseases (NCDs) are now part of the same division, most of the EURO regions’s infectious disease teams, as well as AMR, have been dismantled and merged into the Region’s Health Security division – which traditionally focused on emergencies. “The current proposed organigram eliminates dedicated, unique units, and teams in HIV, TB and viral hepatitis and anti-microbial resistance,” one EURO team member, who asked to remain anonymous, noted. “The fact that communicable diseases have been shrunk, this is a major strategic pitfall, and goes against the European Programme of Work,” the staff member added, noting the high rates of TB, HIV and hepatitis in the EURO Region’s eastern and central Asian member states. “It also eliminates teams in cancer, cardiovascular disease and metabolic diseases,” the team member noted. “I think the worrying, the worrying aspect is some of these are actually, if you take, for example, cardiovascular disease, cancer and AMR, these are diseases that kill the most based on the data we have. And they will become bigger and bigger health challenges. “So the organization is either completely dropping or downsizing the effort and investment on this, on these topics, while at the same time keeping a very big Emergencies Programme, which also seems to be the one that had the highest deficit.” BCG and the consultancy conundrum Notes: Includes FTEs for APWs and Consultants; Assumes each SSA is a FTE because no other equivalent is provided in the HR reports. Along with staff cuts, senior WHO officials said that they are cutting back on contracts for consultants but without presenting any supporting data on that measurement. The number of consultants has swelled exponentially, pushing out regular staff positions in many case. However, without further former disclosures, concrete data on actual consultancy numbers is only likely to become available at the end December, when the bi-annual public HR database is updated. Meanwhile, WHO officials did not deny that a new $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group to support the next phases of the global reorganization, is pending in WHO’s global management system, as per an exclusive Health Policy Watch report, published Wednesday. WHO’s head of business operations, Raul Thomas, said that the Organization is re-evaluating the pending contract in light of recent news reports about the involvement of two former BCG staff with the highly controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distribution scheme as well as another Gaza population relocation plan. “Indeed, this has come to our attention, and we are having discussions with BCG. We are very alarmed at what we have read. They are having an external review,” Thomas said. “And between now, and I would say the end of next week, the organization will take a decision on whether or not we’ll proceed with engaging with BCG. “But it is under careful consideration,” he said, adding that senior management were “alarmed” about the reports that appeared to be in “contravention of the values of the organization.” At the same time, other staff have said that regardless of reputational issues at stake, large and expensive consultancy contracts divert resources from the funding of staff positions – in a setting where every $1 million spent on external consultancies could fund 3-5 rank-and-file WHO staff for about a year. See related story here: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/exclusive-who-has-a-new-4-2-million-contract-pending-with-boston-consulting-group/ Image Credits: WHO Town Hall, 10 July , WHO , https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/about-us/general-programme-of-work/who-strategy-2025-2028-at-a-glance.pdf?sfvrsn=de60054d_3, WHO, European Region . Millions at Risk of HIV Infection and Death After US Funding Cuts, Warns UNAIDS 10/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan Luyengo Clinic in Eswatini. PEPFAR funded 80% of the clinic’s running cost, and the HIV treatment of 3,000 people is now in jeopardy. An additional six million new HIV infections and four million AIDS-related deaths could occur between 2025 and 2029 if US-supported HIV treatment and prevention services collapse, according to UNAIDS. “This is not just a funding gap. It’s a ticking time bomb,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima at the launch of the organisation’s 2025 global AIDS update on Thursday. “We have seen services vanish overnight. Health workers have been sent home. And people – especially children and key populations – are being pushed out of care.” “Key populations” refer to people most vulnerable to HIV infection, including sex workers, men to have sex with men, people who inject drugs and young women. Some of the immediate effects of the US withdrawal of funds since Donald Trump assumed the presidency in January include the closure of health facilities, healthworker job losses, and disrupted treatment, testing and prevention services. Impact of aid cuts on HIV infections and deaths The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) had committed $4.3 billion in bilateral support in 2025 and “those services were stopped overnight when the US government shifted its foreign assistance strategies,” notes the UNAIDS report. PEPFAR had supported HIV testing for 84.1 million people and HIV treatment for 20.6 million people. “Disruptions are being felt across the HIV response and pose a huge risk of increased mortality, a surge of new HIV infections, and the development of resistance to the most commonly used treatment regimens.” In Mozambique, for example, over 30,000 health personnel have lost their jobs. UNAIDS itself faces huge job losses, and is reducing its Geneva head office staff from 127 to a mere 19 employees, according to a report this week by Geneva Solutions. The UN agency’s restructuring plan will cut staff by 54% globally, leaving 280 staff worldwide. HIV prevention programmes hit hard Country reliance on aid for HIV prevention. External funding financed almost 80% of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, 66% in the Caribbean and 60% in the Middle East and North Africa, according to UNAIDS. PEPFAR alone reached 2.3 million adolescent girls and young women with comprehensive HIV prevention services in 2024 and enabled 2.5 million people to use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Many of these programmes have now stopped completely, according to UNAIDS. PrEP involves taking medication to prevent HIV infection and is usually taken by people at high risk of infection, and PEPFAR funded over 90% of PrEP initiations globally in 2024. “Countries are reporting limited availability of PrEP and reduced activities to prevent new HIV acquisitions, including among adolescent girls and young women,” said UNAIDS. In Nigeria, budget cuts have reduced PrEP initiation from 40,000 to 6000 people per month. At the end of 2024, just before a sudden collapse in funding, new HIV infections had been reduced by 40% and AIDS-related deaths by 56% since 2010, Byanyima notes in the report. Countries had also reduced the annual number of children acquiring HIV from their mothers by 62% to 120,000 since 2010. However, prevention efforts were already flatlining before the withdrawal of US aid. In 2024, there were 1.3 million new infections, which was almost the same as the year before. “Over 210,000 girls and young women aged 15 to 24 acquired HIV in 2024 – an average of 570 new infections every day,” according to the UNAIDS report. In 2024, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related causes, 61% of them in sub-Saharan Africa. “Community-led services, which are vital to reaching marginalised populations, are being defunded at alarming rates,” said UNAIDS. “In early 2025, over 60% of women-led HIV organisations surveyed had lost funding or were forced to suspend services.” Domestic budgets inadequate Only 25 of the 60 low- and middle-income countries included in the report have increased their domestic budgets for HIV in 2026. The average increase amounts to 8%, approximately $180 million in additional domestic resources. “This is promising, but not sufficient to replace the scale of international funding in countries that are heavily reliant,” UNAIDS notes. “It is important for donors to recognize that the option of increasing domestic HIV funding is not immediately or equally available to all countries,” UNAIDS notes. “Combinations of debt distress, slow economic growth and underperforming tax systems leave many countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, with limited fiscal space to increase their domestic funding for HIV. “ It cites the recent International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville in Spain, as offering a way forward with “calls for debt relief, international tax cooperation and reform of international financial institutions”. These measure would provide “the first steps towards a new economic settlement that can give countries the fiscal space needed to invest in the global HIV response”, UNAIDS notes. “Urgent action and revived solidarity are needed to sustain the progress made and prevent a resurgence of HIV.” Image Credits: UNAIDS. After Ebola and Bombings, What Has the World Learned? 10/07/2025 Health Policy Watch Dr Joanne Liu, a veteran humanitarian and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has seen the front lines of global health crises—from Ebola in West Africa to bombed-out hospitals in Afghanistan. But her message today is clear: “An imperfect solution is better than no solution.” Speaking on the Global Health Matters podcast, Liu reflected on the values that shaped her career, the lessons learned during her years at MSF, and her call for renewed global solidarity. “Young people come into my ER and tell me they don’t want to live any more,” she said. “They feel trapped in a cruel and unfair world. I want to convince them it’s better to fight than give up.” In her new book, Ebola, Bombs, and Migrants, Liu recounts how fear and political interests often override humanitarian needs. She recalled how the world ignored West Africa’s Ebola crisis until the virus reached Europe and the U.S. “States don’t have friends—they have interests,” she said. Liu also discussed the devastating U.S. airstrike on MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed 42 people. “We called everyone—the Pentagon, the UN—but no one stopped it,” she said. The attack pushed MSF to campaign for stronger protections for medical missions. Liu is now focused on shifting the power dynamics within global health. “For every international staff member, there are nine or ten locally hired,” she said. “We need to rebalance who holds influence.” Despite setbacks, Liu remains hopeful. “There is beauty everywhere,” she said. “It’s action that brings hope, and hope that brings action.” Listen to more episodes of the Global Health Matters podcast on Health Policy Watch. Image Credits: Global Health Matters podcast. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Has a New $4.2 million Contract Pending with Boston Consulting Group 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly in May, where WHO member states approved a stripped-down base budget of $4.2 billion for the next two years (2026-27). The World Health Organization has a draft $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group pending in its Global Management System (GSM), Health Policy Watch has learned – even while Save the Children has suspended its connection to BCG, over the reported involvement of two former staff members in the development of controversial projects in Gaza. If approved and executed, the new WHO contract would be the second one in six months to be awarded to BCG. Some $2,849,745 was spent by WHO on the Boston-based consultancy between 7 April and 15 May, according to GSM records seen by Health Policy Watch – to support the first phase of WHO’s massive restructuring. The WHO reorganization has been triggered by the January withdrawal of WHO’s largest donor, the United States, and a subsequent budget crisis that left a $1.7 billion hole in WHO’s planned $4.2 billion base budget [not including emergencies] for the next two years (2026-2027). The initial BCG consultancy was disclosed by Health Policy Watch in April, after it was discussed at a WHO ‘Town Hall’ convened by senior management. At the time, WHO Staff Association President Catherine Kirorei Corsini told WHO colleagues that the consultancy was being financed by “voluntary and earmarked funding from Bill and Melinda Gates…. And this because it’s voluntary and earmarked, it cannot be used for anything else.” Her remarks were confirmed later by a WHO spokesperson. Continuation of a second phase Sampling disease-carrying mosquitos in Latin America; fears that pending budget cuts will gut the rank and file WHO staff first of all. But according to the terms of reference attached to the first BCG contract, seen by Health Policy Watch, the $2.849 million consultancy that ran from 7 April-15 May, was only “Phase 1”, to be followed by a longer and larger Phase 2 that would further “implementation” of HR restructuring “to support long-term strategic objectives” as well as support “procurement savings to maximize cost-efficiency.” Should that second contract for $4.295 million be approved, that would make for a massive $7.144 million in consultancy awards to the firm over a period of less than a year. Asked to comment on the pending continuation of the work to a second phase, the amounts involved, or the issues around the past activities of BCG staff or former staff in Gaza, WHO did not respond as of publication time. BCG also did not respond to queries by Health Policy Watch. However, regardless of reputational issues, WHO staff have also questioned why the organization should be spending millions on external consultants to advise on its reorganization – at a time when its also facing massive staff cuts. Save the Children suspension Save the Children Clinic in Deir al Balah, northern Gaza. The organization has a network of humanitarian operations across the war-torn enclave. On Tuesday, Save the Children reportedly “suspended” its decades-long relationship with BCG, citing “utterly unacceptable” work on Gaza-related projects – including a plan to relocate about a quarter of Gaza Palestinians out of the enclave following a cease-fire, a decision reported by The New Humanitarian. “We suspended our work with BCG on June 13 and we are now awaiting the outcome of their review,” Save the Children spokesperson Belinda Goldsmith was quoted saying in an email to TNH on 8 July. Save the Children’s decision followed a report last Friday by the Financial Times that BCG had “modeled” the costs of relocating Palestinians out of Gaza as part of a politically controversial post-war reconstruction plan. Breaking news: Boston Consulting Group modelled the costs of ‘relocating’ Palestinians from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch a new aid scheme for the shattered enclave https://t.co/VsVK7igBQQ pic.twitter.com/GObRV5qQHq — Financial Times (@FT) July 4, 2025 Earlier in June, the FT also reported that BCG staff had also been involved in the early stages of planning for the conflict-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Israeli and US-supported entity that began distributing food aid in Gaza last month tried to sidestep UN aid channels, but soon became mired in controversy as hundreds of Palestinians were killed traveling to and from the Foundation’s four distribution sides over the past several weeks. In an 8 July email to all staff, Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing referred to the FT’s reporting on BCG’s involvement with the controversial GHF and “modelling a plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians from Gaza” as “utterly unacceptable”, TNH reported. “Following that, we suspended all ongoing work with BCG pending the outcome of their external investigation and asked all Member teams to do the same,” wrote Ashing, to national-level Save the Children organisations. BCG has repudiated its connection to controversial Gaza projects Only the most able-bodied can run the gauntlet to reach Gaza’s food distribution points, which include four GHF outposts and scattered UN delivery points. In a response dubbed “correcting the record” Sunday, 6 July, BCG said that two former partners had engaged secretly in a Gaza post-conflict evacuation cost assessment – without BCG’s knowledge. “Recent media reporting has misrepresented BCG’s role in post-war Gaza reconstruction,” BCG stated. “Two former partners initiated this work, even though the lead partner was categorically told not to. This work was not a BCG project. It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. We fully disavow this work. BCG was not paid for any of this work. As for the earlier work in relation to the GHF, BCG said that: “In October 2024, a BCG team from the U.S., led by two partners, provided pro bono support to help establish an aid organization intended to operate alongside other relief efforts to deliver humanitarian support to Gaza. They failed to disclose the full nature of the work. These individuals then carried out subsequent unauthorized work. “Their actions reflected a serious failure of judgment and adherence to our standards. “We are shocked and outraged by the actions of these two partners. They have been exited from the firm. BCG disavows the work they undertook. It has been stopped, and BCG has not and will not be paid for any of their work. “We are acting with urgency and seriousness to learn from this and to ensure it does not happen again,” BCG added. “We deeply regret that in this situation we did not live up to our standards. We are committed to living our values—with accountability for our failures and humility in how we move forward.” Image Credits: Wikipedia , WHO/Pierre Albouy, PAHO/WHO, Save the Children , X/Channel 4 . NIH-funded Human Trials Outside US Get Temporary Funding Reprieve 09/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A trial participant is prepared for a blood test as part of a trial of new TB drugs that can overcome drug resistant pathogens. Several HIV and TB trials were suspended following recent changes in US policy. Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a result, some clinical trials on humans were halted midway despite dangers to trial participants and the huge waste of money. However, the payment freeze to several NIH subawardees in South Africa was recently lifted, according the journal, Science, which reported that “an alternative payment scheme … could allow those studies to continue”. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become a “preferred site” for HIV and tuberculosis research, both because of its high burden of HIV and TB and the excellence of its scientific community, according to Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, head of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). It has been disproportionately affected by the NIH’s change in policy towards subawards, which jeopardised at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials, according to an analysis by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 2024, the NIH funded about 3,600 foreign subawards worth more than $400 million, according to Science. The NIH wants to control allocations to foreign research groups, stipulating that they will need to apply directly to NIH for grants, not go via third parties. However, it will only have the new award procedures in place by 30 September, leaving thousands of research projects in limbo. Explaining its position in an announcement on 1 May, the NIH said that it wants to “maintain strong, productive, and secure foreign collaborations” and “ensure it can transparently and reliably report on each dollar spent”. As a result, NIH “is establishing a new award structure that will prohibit foreign subawards from being nested under the parent grant. This new award structure will include a prime with independent awards that are linked to the prime that will allow NIH to track the project’s funds individually,” according to the announcement. However, it now appears to have made exceptions for clinical trials involving people in the interim. “Staff guidance dated 30 June maintains that grant renewal and new applications including a foreign subaward submitted after 1 May will not be reviewed until the new tracking system is in place,” according to Science. “But the document describes an exception for human subject research in applications submitted earlier, and for ongoing human studies. As a temporary measure, NIH grants staff can convert the subawards within these projects to special ‘supplements’ to the main grant that will go directly to the foreign collaborator, the document says.” NIH official Michelle Bulls informed grants staff in a memo on 27 June that, although no new awards can be made to South Africa, “existing subawards with clinical research can continue under the new ‘supplement’ plan… and ongoing prime awards to South African researchers, which make up about 100 of the country’s NIH grants, ‘may proceed’,” according to Science. Prof Ian Sanne, co-principal investigator of the Wits HIV Research Group Clinical Trials Unit, earlier described navigating the US funding cuts as a “major regulatory and ethics nightmare”. One of the studies Sanne oversaw that was terminated involved a trial of microbicide rings filled with slow-release antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV that were inserted vaginally in trial participants, many of whom were at high risk of HIV infection. However, restarting the research is not a simple matter as, in the two-month pause in NIH payments, trial participants have dispersed and research staff have been retrenched. In addition, there is no guarantee that current subawards will qualify for awards under the new system. NIH targets journal fees Meanwhile, the NIH announced this week that it was cracking down on “excessive publisher fees for publicly funded research”. The NIH claimed that “some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. “For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.” In 2026, the NIH will introduce a cap on “allowable publication costs” (APC) to ensure that publication fees “remain reasonable across the research ecosystem”. “This policy marks a critical step in protecting the integrity of the scientific publishing system while ensuring that public investments in research deliver maximum public benefit,” said NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Image Credits: TB Alliance. Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
Football is about health. Big Soda is not 11/07/2025 Lindsey Smith Taillie Sugary drinks are significant drivers of obesity and diabetes. At the 2025 Club World Cup, the world’s most celebrated footballers – from global icons to rising stars – are showcasing their elite athleticism and passion for the game. But as stars like Lionel Messi take center stage, there is one name that doesn’t belong anywhere near the pitch: Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola has partnered with global football body FIFA since 1978 and has been a ubiquitous presence at this year’s Club World Cup. FIFA’s football tournaments are a premier platform for showcasing health and fitness, while Coke is the largest global manufacturer of soft drinks, a top driver of the world’s twin epidemics: obesity and diabetes. Coca-Cola should not be sharing the spotlight with football players and using their achievements to “sportswash” away soda’s harms. It’s easy to see why not. Four of the five brands under Coke’s umbrella contain high levels of added sugar or artificial sweeteners. A single 20 oz bottle of Minute Maid Lemonade contains 67 grams of added sugar, over 100% of what a typical adult should consume in a day. Liquid sugar is especially damaging. It causes dental caries, weight gain and increases many health risks. Our bodies don’t respond to liquid calories the same way as food calories: they do not make us feel full, leading us to consume more. Additionally, there’s increasing scientific evidence to suggest sugar is addictive: it affects the brain in a manner similar to cocaine and can lead to increasing intake, withdrawal and cravings. The health harms of sugary drinks start young. Big Soda companies hook kids on their products through pervasive marketing tactics used in schools, during kids’ sports and on screens. As a result, over half of American children consume sugary drinks daily. And because dietary behaviors set in childhood track into adulthood, these early preferences set kids up for lifetimes of unhealthy eating. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are amongst the worst plastic polluters in the world. Big Soda also devastates our environment. Along with PepsiCo, Coke is one of the largest plastic polluters in the world. According to the University of California, per liter, soda uses 27 times more water and produces 11 times more greenhouse gas emissions than the equivalent amount of tap water. Yet, Big Soda has tried to frame itself as “part of the solution.” For decades, it’s promoted physical activity as a solution to obesity, ignoring data that it’s nearly impossible to out-exercise a bad diet. Beverage companies have interfered with scientific research and professional nutritional organizations, obfuscating the true health impacts of their products. And by positioning themselves as “helpful,” they have actively fought against public policies to reduce sugary drink consumption. Along with “sports” and “health washing,” Big Soda employs “greenwashing,” or framing damaging products as helping, not harming, the environment. At the 2024 Olympic Games, where Coca-Cola was a leading sponsor, the soda giant claimed to be an environmental champion by halving the number of plastic bottles used at previous Olympics. While seemingly offering nine million drinks in reuseable, returnable eco-cups, 75% of these drinks came from plastic bottles poured into eco-cups. At best, this type of “greenwashing” is misleading to consumers and at worst, threatens to exacerbate the pollution crisis. These companies also use emotion to push product sales. Coke’s 2022 World Cup advertisement featured people from around the world celebrating amid a flurry of confetti, which outwardly has nothing to do with soda. Coke chose to capitalize on the emotions the World Cup incites: hope, joy and a sense of social connection that is increasingly rare. It profits from this emotional appeal by selling us products that are harmful for our health and planet. Football is bigger than ever. The 2022 FIFA World Cup drew a cumulative audience of over 5 billion, with the final alone watched by 1.5 million people. With this massive reach comes increased responsibility to engage in ethical, transparent practices that don’t cause health and environmental harm. If we expect our athletes to play fair, so should FIFA. But the tide is turning. The Kick Big Soda Out of Sport campaign, led by global health advocates and organizations, is mounting an opposition to Big Soda’s sports sponsorships. As the 2025 Club World Cup games are being played across the U.S., the Kick Big Soda Out movement is demanding FIFA end its partnership with Coca-Cola. Over 350,000 people, alongside 97 health and environmental organizations have already pledged their support. The spotlight isn’t only on the players—it’s on FIFA too. Will it continue to hijack the global stage for profit, or will it take a stand for the health of fans, players and the planet? The facts are clear. It’s time to ban Big Soda in sport. Lindsey Smith Taillie, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a nutrition epidemiologist focused on designing and evaluating healthy food policies. Image Credits: Vital Strategies. World Health Organization Advances Deep Staff Cuts – Unclear How Strategic Priorities Will be Reflected 10/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Raul Thomas, the Assistant Director-General for Business Operations at the World Health Assembly in May, where member states approved a stripped-down $4.2 billion budget for 2026-27 – for which the agency is still short $1.7 billion in funds. The World Health Organization has reduced its global headcount by about 221 people since January, down to 9,231 as compared to 9452 at the start of January – largely through a termination of temporary contracts and a freeze in renewals. Most of the cutbacks have been at the Geneva Headquarters, WHO’s largest office, where 2,938 positions in January 2025, shrunk to about 2,782 as of July. Cuts in staff from January – July 2025 at WHO’s Geneva Headquarters. Another 194 staff worldwide are expected to leave in coming weeks, due to voluntary retirement and initial separations, according to a presentation made by senior WHO officials to staff at a global “Town Hall” on Thursday. But this remains a drop in the bucket of what is likely to come next – with potential retrenchment of some 20% of staff globally, and even more at headquarters, according to previous WHO modeling estimates. Even after the initial $150-165 million in payroll savings as well as another $140-260 million in travel and procurement cuts this year – the Organization still needs to reduce spending by another $390-490 million by year’s end in order to meet a $4.2 billion budget target for the 2026-2027 biennium. And that $4.2 billion two-year budget also remains underfunded – with an estimated $1.7 billion revenue gap as of May. Macro view of the $800 million budget cut needed to reach the new $4.2 billion budget target for 2026-2027 – providing that money can in fact be raised. After Headquarters, WHO’s African Region has the largest number of staff positions – and also faces the largest salary gap for 2025, according to other previously published data. But it, along with several other WHO regions, has hardly begun the retrenchment process, to date – even though new organizational plans have by now been designed. The AFRO headcount has declined by a mere 47 people – from 2,561 in January to 2,514 as of July, data shared at the meeting Thursday indicated. Salary gap by region for 2025 as presented to WHO member states in March, shows more than half of the deficit is in headquarters. In the case of the WHO Regional Office of the Americas/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), decisions on staff cuts remain formally suspended until September – by which time the Trump administration is expected to make a final decision on whether it will continue to fund PAHO, which it co-founded over a century ago. PAHO operates as a semi-autonomous entity from WHO -with a separate governing body and a budget 70% funded by member states in the Americas region. The decision of the United States, WHO’s largest donor, to withdraw from the WHO global entity in January, didn’t technically apply to PAHO, whose relationship with the US is being deliberated separately in Washington DC. Hard work begins – matching and mapping rank and file staff On 1 July, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the appointment of 36 directors at the Geneva Headquarters to oversee a consolidated set of programme departments – whose numbers have been slashed by nearly half. See related story. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Chief Names New Team of Directors – Mostly Familiar Faces At Thursday’s Town Hall, Tedros and senior management also unveiled the first concrete set of proposals to move some WHO/Geneva teams and departments to other, less expensive locations. Those include the relocation of: some Health Emergencies functions to Dubai; laboratory surveillance to WHO pandemic surveillance hub in Berlin; and certain financial and Human Resources functions to Lyon, France, where WHO already has an office. A series of staff consultations will now take place on the plan, before a final decision is made, the WHO leadership said. Relocation of key offices – proposals to be discussed with WHO staff in coming weeks. Following these moves, however, the really hard work is beginning to map positions at department level – and then “map” existing staff. Against this massive challenge, many staff seem unclear about how strategically linked-up the new department organization is to WHO strategic priorities, to date. In WHO’s Geneva Headquarters, for instance, some staff expressed concerns that the traditional “vertical” infectious disease departments would still fare better than departments covering a wide range of less well-funded topics, such as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)- which nonetheless represent the majority of the world’s disease burden today. “I’m worried that there won’t be a fresh look at priorities in line with the General Programme of Work,” one staff member observed, noting that the first two priorities of the GPW are 1) climate change response and 2) so-called environmental and lifestyle risks that are the “root causes” of ill health. At present, such priorities are not well reflected in current WHO staffing balances, another scientist observed: “For instance, TB, alone, is a department of about 55 staff; HIV, Hepatitis and other Sexually Transmitted Infections also has roughly 55 staff and consultants – and at the same time, you have GAVI, UNAIDS and The Global Fund covering many of these same priorities.” “In the NCDs team, on the other hand, you have about 50 staff. But they deal with all of the major NCDs that represent 74% of the world’s disease burden, including cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancers, oral and eye health, as well as disability and rehabilitation.” In WHO’s European Region giving up on communicable diseases and cancer? Macro view of the new European Regional Office structure with three main programme divisions overall, and Health Security absorbing key disease control actitivities including AMR. Meanwhile, some staff in WHO’s European region voiced somewhat different concerns. In contrast to headquarters, where infectious and noncommunicable dieseases (NCDs) are now part of the same division, most of the EURO regions’s infectious disease teams, as well as AMR, have been dismantled and merged into the Region’s Health Security division – which traditionally focused on emergencies. “The current proposed organigram eliminates dedicated, unique units, and teams in HIV, TB and viral hepatitis and anti-microbial resistance,” one EURO team member, who asked to remain anonymous, noted. “The fact that communicable diseases have been shrunk, this is a major strategic pitfall, and goes against the European Programme of Work,” the staff member added, noting the high rates of TB, HIV and hepatitis in the EURO Region’s eastern and central Asian member states. “It also eliminates teams in cancer, cardiovascular disease and metabolic diseases,” the team member noted. “I think the worrying, the worrying aspect is some of these are actually, if you take, for example, cardiovascular disease, cancer and AMR, these are diseases that kill the most based on the data we have. And they will become bigger and bigger health challenges. “So the organization is either completely dropping or downsizing the effort and investment on this, on these topics, while at the same time keeping a very big Emergencies Programme, which also seems to be the one that had the highest deficit.” BCG and the consultancy conundrum Notes: Includes FTEs for APWs and Consultants; Assumes each SSA is a FTE because no other equivalent is provided in the HR reports. Along with staff cuts, senior WHO officials said that they are cutting back on contracts for consultants but without presenting any supporting data on that measurement. The number of consultants has swelled exponentially, pushing out regular staff positions in many case. However, without further former disclosures, concrete data on actual consultancy numbers is only likely to become available at the end December, when the bi-annual public HR database is updated. Meanwhile, WHO officials did not deny that a new $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group to support the next phases of the global reorganization, is pending in WHO’s global management system, as per an exclusive Health Policy Watch report, published Wednesday. WHO’s head of business operations, Raul Thomas, said that the Organization is re-evaluating the pending contract in light of recent news reports about the involvement of two former BCG staff with the highly controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distribution scheme as well as another Gaza population relocation plan. “Indeed, this has come to our attention, and we are having discussions with BCG. We are very alarmed at what we have read. They are having an external review,” Thomas said. “And between now, and I would say the end of next week, the organization will take a decision on whether or not we’ll proceed with engaging with BCG. “But it is under careful consideration,” he said, adding that senior management were “alarmed” about the reports that appeared to be in “contravention of the values of the organization.” At the same time, other staff have said that regardless of reputational issues at stake, large and expensive consultancy contracts divert resources from the funding of staff positions – in a setting where every $1 million spent on external consultancies could fund 3-5 rank-and-file WHO staff for about a year. See related story here: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/exclusive-who-has-a-new-4-2-million-contract-pending-with-boston-consulting-group/ Image Credits: WHO Town Hall, 10 July , WHO , https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/about-us/general-programme-of-work/who-strategy-2025-2028-at-a-glance.pdf?sfvrsn=de60054d_3, WHO, European Region . Millions at Risk of HIV Infection and Death After US Funding Cuts, Warns UNAIDS 10/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan Luyengo Clinic in Eswatini. PEPFAR funded 80% of the clinic’s running cost, and the HIV treatment of 3,000 people is now in jeopardy. An additional six million new HIV infections and four million AIDS-related deaths could occur between 2025 and 2029 if US-supported HIV treatment and prevention services collapse, according to UNAIDS. “This is not just a funding gap. It’s a ticking time bomb,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima at the launch of the organisation’s 2025 global AIDS update on Thursday. “We have seen services vanish overnight. Health workers have been sent home. And people – especially children and key populations – are being pushed out of care.” “Key populations” refer to people most vulnerable to HIV infection, including sex workers, men to have sex with men, people who inject drugs and young women. Some of the immediate effects of the US withdrawal of funds since Donald Trump assumed the presidency in January include the closure of health facilities, healthworker job losses, and disrupted treatment, testing and prevention services. Impact of aid cuts on HIV infections and deaths The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) had committed $4.3 billion in bilateral support in 2025 and “those services were stopped overnight when the US government shifted its foreign assistance strategies,” notes the UNAIDS report. PEPFAR had supported HIV testing for 84.1 million people and HIV treatment for 20.6 million people. “Disruptions are being felt across the HIV response and pose a huge risk of increased mortality, a surge of new HIV infections, and the development of resistance to the most commonly used treatment regimens.” In Mozambique, for example, over 30,000 health personnel have lost their jobs. UNAIDS itself faces huge job losses, and is reducing its Geneva head office staff from 127 to a mere 19 employees, according to a report this week by Geneva Solutions. The UN agency’s restructuring plan will cut staff by 54% globally, leaving 280 staff worldwide. HIV prevention programmes hit hard Country reliance on aid for HIV prevention. External funding financed almost 80% of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, 66% in the Caribbean and 60% in the Middle East and North Africa, according to UNAIDS. PEPFAR alone reached 2.3 million adolescent girls and young women with comprehensive HIV prevention services in 2024 and enabled 2.5 million people to use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Many of these programmes have now stopped completely, according to UNAIDS. PrEP involves taking medication to prevent HIV infection and is usually taken by people at high risk of infection, and PEPFAR funded over 90% of PrEP initiations globally in 2024. “Countries are reporting limited availability of PrEP and reduced activities to prevent new HIV acquisitions, including among adolescent girls and young women,” said UNAIDS. In Nigeria, budget cuts have reduced PrEP initiation from 40,000 to 6000 people per month. At the end of 2024, just before a sudden collapse in funding, new HIV infections had been reduced by 40% and AIDS-related deaths by 56% since 2010, Byanyima notes in the report. Countries had also reduced the annual number of children acquiring HIV from their mothers by 62% to 120,000 since 2010. However, prevention efforts were already flatlining before the withdrawal of US aid. In 2024, there were 1.3 million new infections, which was almost the same as the year before. “Over 210,000 girls and young women aged 15 to 24 acquired HIV in 2024 – an average of 570 new infections every day,” according to the UNAIDS report. In 2024, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related causes, 61% of them in sub-Saharan Africa. “Community-led services, which are vital to reaching marginalised populations, are being defunded at alarming rates,” said UNAIDS. “In early 2025, over 60% of women-led HIV organisations surveyed had lost funding or were forced to suspend services.” Domestic budgets inadequate Only 25 of the 60 low- and middle-income countries included in the report have increased their domestic budgets for HIV in 2026. The average increase amounts to 8%, approximately $180 million in additional domestic resources. “This is promising, but not sufficient to replace the scale of international funding in countries that are heavily reliant,” UNAIDS notes. “It is important for donors to recognize that the option of increasing domestic HIV funding is not immediately or equally available to all countries,” UNAIDS notes. “Combinations of debt distress, slow economic growth and underperforming tax systems leave many countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, with limited fiscal space to increase their domestic funding for HIV. “ It cites the recent International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville in Spain, as offering a way forward with “calls for debt relief, international tax cooperation and reform of international financial institutions”. These measure would provide “the first steps towards a new economic settlement that can give countries the fiscal space needed to invest in the global HIV response”, UNAIDS notes. “Urgent action and revived solidarity are needed to sustain the progress made and prevent a resurgence of HIV.” Image Credits: UNAIDS. After Ebola and Bombings, What Has the World Learned? 10/07/2025 Health Policy Watch Dr Joanne Liu, a veteran humanitarian and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has seen the front lines of global health crises—from Ebola in West Africa to bombed-out hospitals in Afghanistan. But her message today is clear: “An imperfect solution is better than no solution.” Speaking on the Global Health Matters podcast, Liu reflected on the values that shaped her career, the lessons learned during her years at MSF, and her call for renewed global solidarity. “Young people come into my ER and tell me they don’t want to live any more,” she said. “They feel trapped in a cruel and unfair world. I want to convince them it’s better to fight than give up.” In her new book, Ebola, Bombs, and Migrants, Liu recounts how fear and political interests often override humanitarian needs. She recalled how the world ignored West Africa’s Ebola crisis until the virus reached Europe and the U.S. “States don’t have friends—they have interests,” she said. Liu also discussed the devastating U.S. airstrike on MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed 42 people. “We called everyone—the Pentagon, the UN—but no one stopped it,” she said. The attack pushed MSF to campaign for stronger protections for medical missions. Liu is now focused on shifting the power dynamics within global health. “For every international staff member, there are nine or ten locally hired,” she said. “We need to rebalance who holds influence.” Despite setbacks, Liu remains hopeful. “There is beauty everywhere,” she said. “It’s action that brings hope, and hope that brings action.” Listen to more episodes of the Global Health Matters podcast on Health Policy Watch. Image Credits: Global Health Matters podcast. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Has a New $4.2 million Contract Pending with Boston Consulting Group 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly in May, where WHO member states approved a stripped-down base budget of $4.2 billion for the next two years (2026-27). The World Health Organization has a draft $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group pending in its Global Management System (GSM), Health Policy Watch has learned – even while Save the Children has suspended its connection to BCG, over the reported involvement of two former staff members in the development of controversial projects in Gaza. If approved and executed, the new WHO contract would be the second one in six months to be awarded to BCG. Some $2,849,745 was spent by WHO on the Boston-based consultancy between 7 April and 15 May, according to GSM records seen by Health Policy Watch – to support the first phase of WHO’s massive restructuring. The WHO reorganization has been triggered by the January withdrawal of WHO’s largest donor, the United States, and a subsequent budget crisis that left a $1.7 billion hole in WHO’s planned $4.2 billion base budget [not including emergencies] for the next two years (2026-2027). The initial BCG consultancy was disclosed by Health Policy Watch in April, after it was discussed at a WHO ‘Town Hall’ convened by senior management. At the time, WHO Staff Association President Catherine Kirorei Corsini told WHO colleagues that the consultancy was being financed by “voluntary and earmarked funding from Bill and Melinda Gates…. And this because it’s voluntary and earmarked, it cannot be used for anything else.” Her remarks were confirmed later by a WHO spokesperson. Continuation of a second phase Sampling disease-carrying mosquitos in Latin America; fears that pending budget cuts will gut the rank and file WHO staff first of all. But according to the terms of reference attached to the first BCG contract, seen by Health Policy Watch, the $2.849 million consultancy that ran from 7 April-15 May, was only “Phase 1”, to be followed by a longer and larger Phase 2 that would further “implementation” of HR restructuring “to support long-term strategic objectives” as well as support “procurement savings to maximize cost-efficiency.” Should that second contract for $4.295 million be approved, that would make for a massive $7.144 million in consultancy awards to the firm over a period of less than a year. Asked to comment on the pending continuation of the work to a second phase, the amounts involved, or the issues around the past activities of BCG staff or former staff in Gaza, WHO did not respond as of publication time. BCG also did not respond to queries by Health Policy Watch. However, regardless of reputational issues, WHO staff have also questioned why the organization should be spending millions on external consultants to advise on its reorganization – at a time when its also facing massive staff cuts. Save the Children suspension Save the Children Clinic in Deir al Balah, northern Gaza. The organization has a network of humanitarian operations across the war-torn enclave. On Tuesday, Save the Children reportedly “suspended” its decades-long relationship with BCG, citing “utterly unacceptable” work on Gaza-related projects – including a plan to relocate about a quarter of Gaza Palestinians out of the enclave following a cease-fire, a decision reported by The New Humanitarian. “We suspended our work with BCG on June 13 and we are now awaiting the outcome of their review,” Save the Children spokesperson Belinda Goldsmith was quoted saying in an email to TNH on 8 July. Save the Children’s decision followed a report last Friday by the Financial Times that BCG had “modeled” the costs of relocating Palestinians out of Gaza as part of a politically controversial post-war reconstruction plan. Breaking news: Boston Consulting Group modelled the costs of ‘relocating’ Palestinians from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch a new aid scheme for the shattered enclave https://t.co/VsVK7igBQQ pic.twitter.com/GObRV5qQHq — Financial Times (@FT) July 4, 2025 Earlier in June, the FT also reported that BCG staff had also been involved in the early stages of planning for the conflict-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Israeli and US-supported entity that began distributing food aid in Gaza last month tried to sidestep UN aid channels, but soon became mired in controversy as hundreds of Palestinians were killed traveling to and from the Foundation’s four distribution sides over the past several weeks. In an 8 July email to all staff, Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing referred to the FT’s reporting on BCG’s involvement with the controversial GHF and “modelling a plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians from Gaza” as “utterly unacceptable”, TNH reported. “Following that, we suspended all ongoing work with BCG pending the outcome of their external investigation and asked all Member teams to do the same,” wrote Ashing, to national-level Save the Children organisations. BCG has repudiated its connection to controversial Gaza projects Only the most able-bodied can run the gauntlet to reach Gaza’s food distribution points, which include four GHF outposts and scattered UN delivery points. In a response dubbed “correcting the record” Sunday, 6 July, BCG said that two former partners had engaged secretly in a Gaza post-conflict evacuation cost assessment – without BCG’s knowledge. “Recent media reporting has misrepresented BCG’s role in post-war Gaza reconstruction,” BCG stated. “Two former partners initiated this work, even though the lead partner was categorically told not to. This work was not a BCG project. It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. We fully disavow this work. BCG was not paid for any of this work. As for the earlier work in relation to the GHF, BCG said that: “In October 2024, a BCG team from the U.S., led by two partners, provided pro bono support to help establish an aid organization intended to operate alongside other relief efforts to deliver humanitarian support to Gaza. They failed to disclose the full nature of the work. These individuals then carried out subsequent unauthorized work. “Their actions reflected a serious failure of judgment and adherence to our standards. “We are shocked and outraged by the actions of these two partners. They have been exited from the firm. BCG disavows the work they undertook. It has been stopped, and BCG has not and will not be paid for any of their work. “We are acting with urgency and seriousness to learn from this and to ensure it does not happen again,” BCG added. “We deeply regret that in this situation we did not live up to our standards. We are committed to living our values—with accountability for our failures and humility in how we move forward.” Image Credits: Wikipedia , WHO/Pierre Albouy, PAHO/WHO, Save the Children , X/Channel 4 . NIH-funded Human Trials Outside US Get Temporary Funding Reprieve 09/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A trial participant is prepared for a blood test as part of a trial of new TB drugs that can overcome drug resistant pathogens. Several HIV and TB trials were suspended following recent changes in US policy. Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a result, some clinical trials on humans were halted midway despite dangers to trial participants and the huge waste of money. However, the payment freeze to several NIH subawardees in South Africa was recently lifted, according the journal, Science, which reported that “an alternative payment scheme … could allow those studies to continue”. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become a “preferred site” for HIV and tuberculosis research, both because of its high burden of HIV and TB and the excellence of its scientific community, according to Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, head of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). It has been disproportionately affected by the NIH’s change in policy towards subawards, which jeopardised at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials, according to an analysis by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 2024, the NIH funded about 3,600 foreign subawards worth more than $400 million, according to Science. The NIH wants to control allocations to foreign research groups, stipulating that they will need to apply directly to NIH for grants, not go via third parties. However, it will only have the new award procedures in place by 30 September, leaving thousands of research projects in limbo. Explaining its position in an announcement on 1 May, the NIH said that it wants to “maintain strong, productive, and secure foreign collaborations” and “ensure it can transparently and reliably report on each dollar spent”. As a result, NIH “is establishing a new award structure that will prohibit foreign subawards from being nested under the parent grant. This new award structure will include a prime with independent awards that are linked to the prime that will allow NIH to track the project’s funds individually,” according to the announcement. However, it now appears to have made exceptions for clinical trials involving people in the interim. “Staff guidance dated 30 June maintains that grant renewal and new applications including a foreign subaward submitted after 1 May will not be reviewed until the new tracking system is in place,” according to Science. “But the document describes an exception for human subject research in applications submitted earlier, and for ongoing human studies. As a temporary measure, NIH grants staff can convert the subawards within these projects to special ‘supplements’ to the main grant that will go directly to the foreign collaborator, the document says.” NIH official Michelle Bulls informed grants staff in a memo on 27 June that, although no new awards can be made to South Africa, “existing subawards with clinical research can continue under the new ‘supplement’ plan… and ongoing prime awards to South African researchers, which make up about 100 of the country’s NIH grants, ‘may proceed’,” according to Science. Prof Ian Sanne, co-principal investigator of the Wits HIV Research Group Clinical Trials Unit, earlier described navigating the US funding cuts as a “major regulatory and ethics nightmare”. One of the studies Sanne oversaw that was terminated involved a trial of microbicide rings filled with slow-release antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV that were inserted vaginally in trial participants, many of whom were at high risk of HIV infection. However, restarting the research is not a simple matter as, in the two-month pause in NIH payments, trial participants have dispersed and research staff have been retrenched. In addition, there is no guarantee that current subawards will qualify for awards under the new system. NIH targets journal fees Meanwhile, the NIH announced this week that it was cracking down on “excessive publisher fees for publicly funded research”. The NIH claimed that “some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. “For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.” In 2026, the NIH will introduce a cap on “allowable publication costs” (APC) to ensure that publication fees “remain reasonable across the research ecosystem”. “This policy marks a critical step in protecting the integrity of the scientific publishing system while ensuring that public investments in research deliver maximum public benefit,” said NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Image Credits: TB Alliance. Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
World Health Organization Advances Deep Staff Cuts – Unclear How Strategic Priorities Will be Reflected 10/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Raul Thomas, the Assistant Director-General for Business Operations at the World Health Assembly in May, where member states approved a stripped-down $4.2 billion budget for 2026-27 – for which the agency is still short $1.7 billion in funds. The World Health Organization has reduced its global headcount by about 221 people since January, down to 9,231 as compared to 9452 at the start of January – largely through a termination of temporary contracts and a freeze in renewals. Most of the cutbacks have been at the Geneva Headquarters, WHO’s largest office, where 2,938 positions in January 2025, shrunk to about 2,782 as of July. Cuts in staff from January – July 2025 at WHO’s Geneva Headquarters. Another 194 staff worldwide are expected to leave in coming weeks, due to voluntary retirement and initial separations, according to a presentation made by senior WHO officials to staff at a global “Town Hall” on Thursday. But this remains a drop in the bucket of what is likely to come next – with potential retrenchment of some 20% of staff globally, and even more at headquarters, according to previous WHO modeling estimates. Even after the initial $150-165 million in payroll savings as well as another $140-260 million in travel and procurement cuts this year – the Organization still needs to reduce spending by another $390-490 million by year’s end in order to meet a $4.2 billion budget target for the 2026-2027 biennium. And that $4.2 billion two-year budget also remains underfunded – with an estimated $1.7 billion revenue gap as of May. Macro view of the $800 million budget cut needed to reach the new $4.2 billion budget target for 2026-2027 – providing that money can in fact be raised. After Headquarters, WHO’s African Region has the largest number of staff positions – and also faces the largest salary gap for 2025, according to other previously published data. But it, along with several other WHO regions, has hardly begun the retrenchment process, to date – even though new organizational plans have by now been designed. The AFRO headcount has declined by a mere 47 people – from 2,561 in January to 2,514 as of July, data shared at the meeting Thursday indicated. Salary gap by region for 2025 as presented to WHO member states in March, shows more than half of the deficit is in headquarters. In the case of the WHO Regional Office of the Americas/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), decisions on staff cuts remain formally suspended until September – by which time the Trump administration is expected to make a final decision on whether it will continue to fund PAHO, which it co-founded over a century ago. PAHO operates as a semi-autonomous entity from WHO -with a separate governing body and a budget 70% funded by member states in the Americas region. The decision of the United States, WHO’s largest donor, to withdraw from the WHO global entity in January, didn’t technically apply to PAHO, whose relationship with the US is being deliberated separately in Washington DC. Hard work begins – matching and mapping rank and file staff On 1 July, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the appointment of 36 directors at the Geneva Headquarters to oversee a consolidated set of programme departments – whose numbers have been slashed by nearly half. See related story. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Chief Names New Team of Directors – Mostly Familiar Faces At Thursday’s Town Hall, Tedros and senior management also unveiled the first concrete set of proposals to move some WHO/Geneva teams and departments to other, less expensive locations. Those include the relocation of: some Health Emergencies functions to Dubai; laboratory surveillance to WHO pandemic surveillance hub in Berlin; and certain financial and Human Resources functions to Lyon, France, where WHO already has an office. A series of staff consultations will now take place on the plan, before a final decision is made, the WHO leadership said. Relocation of key offices – proposals to be discussed with WHO staff in coming weeks. Following these moves, however, the really hard work is beginning to map positions at department level – and then “map” existing staff. Against this massive challenge, many staff seem unclear about how strategically linked-up the new department organization is to WHO strategic priorities, to date. In WHO’s Geneva Headquarters, for instance, some staff expressed concerns that the traditional “vertical” infectious disease departments would still fare better than departments covering a wide range of less well-funded topics, such as noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)- which nonetheless represent the majority of the world’s disease burden today. “I’m worried that there won’t be a fresh look at priorities in line with the General Programme of Work,” one staff member observed, noting that the first two priorities of the GPW are 1) climate change response and 2) so-called environmental and lifestyle risks that are the “root causes” of ill health. At present, such priorities are not well reflected in current WHO staffing balances, another scientist observed: “For instance, TB, alone, is a department of about 55 staff; HIV, Hepatitis and other Sexually Transmitted Infections also has roughly 55 staff and consultants – and at the same time, you have GAVI, UNAIDS and The Global Fund covering many of these same priorities.” “In the NCDs team, on the other hand, you have about 50 staff. But they deal with all of the major NCDs that represent 74% of the world’s disease burden, including cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cancers, oral and eye health, as well as disability and rehabilitation.” In WHO’s European Region giving up on communicable diseases and cancer? Macro view of the new European Regional Office structure with three main programme divisions overall, and Health Security absorbing key disease control actitivities including AMR. Meanwhile, some staff in WHO’s European region voiced somewhat different concerns. In contrast to headquarters, where infectious and noncommunicable dieseases (NCDs) are now part of the same division, most of the EURO regions’s infectious disease teams, as well as AMR, have been dismantled and merged into the Region’s Health Security division – which traditionally focused on emergencies. “The current proposed organigram eliminates dedicated, unique units, and teams in HIV, TB and viral hepatitis and anti-microbial resistance,” one EURO team member, who asked to remain anonymous, noted. “The fact that communicable diseases have been shrunk, this is a major strategic pitfall, and goes against the European Programme of Work,” the staff member added, noting the high rates of TB, HIV and hepatitis in the EURO Region’s eastern and central Asian member states. “It also eliminates teams in cancer, cardiovascular disease and metabolic diseases,” the team member noted. “I think the worrying, the worrying aspect is some of these are actually, if you take, for example, cardiovascular disease, cancer and AMR, these are diseases that kill the most based on the data we have. And they will become bigger and bigger health challenges. “So the organization is either completely dropping or downsizing the effort and investment on this, on these topics, while at the same time keeping a very big Emergencies Programme, which also seems to be the one that had the highest deficit.” BCG and the consultancy conundrum Notes: Includes FTEs for APWs and Consultants; Assumes each SSA is a FTE because no other equivalent is provided in the HR reports. Along with staff cuts, senior WHO officials said that they are cutting back on contracts for consultants but without presenting any supporting data on that measurement. The number of consultants has swelled exponentially, pushing out regular staff positions in many case. However, without further former disclosures, concrete data on actual consultancy numbers is only likely to become available at the end December, when the bi-annual public HR database is updated. Meanwhile, WHO officials did not deny that a new $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group to support the next phases of the global reorganization, is pending in WHO’s global management system, as per an exclusive Health Policy Watch report, published Wednesday. WHO’s head of business operations, Raul Thomas, said that the Organization is re-evaluating the pending contract in light of recent news reports about the involvement of two former BCG staff with the highly controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distribution scheme as well as another Gaza population relocation plan. “Indeed, this has come to our attention, and we are having discussions with BCG. We are very alarmed at what we have read. They are having an external review,” Thomas said. “And between now, and I would say the end of next week, the organization will take a decision on whether or not we’ll proceed with engaging with BCG. “But it is under careful consideration,” he said, adding that senior management were “alarmed” about the reports that appeared to be in “contravention of the values of the organization.” At the same time, other staff have said that regardless of reputational issues at stake, large and expensive consultancy contracts divert resources from the funding of staff positions – in a setting where every $1 million spent on external consultancies could fund 3-5 rank-and-file WHO staff for about a year. See related story here: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/exclusive-who-has-a-new-4-2-million-contract-pending-with-boston-consulting-group/ Image Credits: WHO Town Hall, 10 July , WHO , https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/about-us/general-programme-of-work/who-strategy-2025-2028-at-a-glance.pdf?sfvrsn=de60054d_3, WHO, European Region . Millions at Risk of HIV Infection and Death After US Funding Cuts, Warns UNAIDS 10/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan Luyengo Clinic in Eswatini. PEPFAR funded 80% of the clinic’s running cost, and the HIV treatment of 3,000 people is now in jeopardy. An additional six million new HIV infections and four million AIDS-related deaths could occur between 2025 and 2029 if US-supported HIV treatment and prevention services collapse, according to UNAIDS. “This is not just a funding gap. It’s a ticking time bomb,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima at the launch of the organisation’s 2025 global AIDS update on Thursday. “We have seen services vanish overnight. Health workers have been sent home. And people – especially children and key populations – are being pushed out of care.” “Key populations” refer to people most vulnerable to HIV infection, including sex workers, men to have sex with men, people who inject drugs and young women. Some of the immediate effects of the US withdrawal of funds since Donald Trump assumed the presidency in January include the closure of health facilities, healthworker job losses, and disrupted treatment, testing and prevention services. Impact of aid cuts on HIV infections and deaths The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) had committed $4.3 billion in bilateral support in 2025 and “those services were stopped overnight when the US government shifted its foreign assistance strategies,” notes the UNAIDS report. PEPFAR had supported HIV testing for 84.1 million people and HIV treatment for 20.6 million people. “Disruptions are being felt across the HIV response and pose a huge risk of increased mortality, a surge of new HIV infections, and the development of resistance to the most commonly used treatment regimens.” In Mozambique, for example, over 30,000 health personnel have lost their jobs. UNAIDS itself faces huge job losses, and is reducing its Geneva head office staff from 127 to a mere 19 employees, according to a report this week by Geneva Solutions. The UN agency’s restructuring plan will cut staff by 54% globally, leaving 280 staff worldwide. HIV prevention programmes hit hard Country reliance on aid for HIV prevention. External funding financed almost 80% of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, 66% in the Caribbean and 60% in the Middle East and North Africa, according to UNAIDS. PEPFAR alone reached 2.3 million adolescent girls and young women with comprehensive HIV prevention services in 2024 and enabled 2.5 million people to use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Many of these programmes have now stopped completely, according to UNAIDS. PrEP involves taking medication to prevent HIV infection and is usually taken by people at high risk of infection, and PEPFAR funded over 90% of PrEP initiations globally in 2024. “Countries are reporting limited availability of PrEP and reduced activities to prevent new HIV acquisitions, including among adolescent girls and young women,” said UNAIDS. In Nigeria, budget cuts have reduced PrEP initiation from 40,000 to 6000 people per month. At the end of 2024, just before a sudden collapse in funding, new HIV infections had been reduced by 40% and AIDS-related deaths by 56% since 2010, Byanyima notes in the report. Countries had also reduced the annual number of children acquiring HIV from their mothers by 62% to 120,000 since 2010. However, prevention efforts were already flatlining before the withdrawal of US aid. In 2024, there were 1.3 million new infections, which was almost the same as the year before. “Over 210,000 girls and young women aged 15 to 24 acquired HIV in 2024 – an average of 570 new infections every day,” according to the UNAIDS report. In 2024, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related causes, 61% of them in sub-Saharan Africa. “Community-led services, which are vital to reaching marginalised populations, are being defunded at alarming rates,” said UNAIDS. “In early 2025, over 60% of women-led HIV organisations surveyed had lost funding or were forced to suspend services.” Domestic budgets inadequate Only 25 of the 60 low- and middle-income countries included in the report have increased their domestic budgets for HIV in 2026. The average increase amounts to 8%, approximately $180 million in additional domestic resources. “This is promising, but not sufficient to replace the scale of international funding in countries that are heavily reliant,” UNAIDS notes. “It is important for donors to recognize that the option of increasing domestic HIV funding is not immediately or equally available to all countries,” UNAIDS notes. “Combinations of debt distress, slow economic growth and underperforming tax systems leave many countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, with limited fiscal space to increase their domestic funding for HIV. “ It cites the recent International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville in Spain, as offering a way forward with “calls for debt relief, international tax cooperation and reform of international financial institutions”. These measure would provide “the first steps towards a new economic settlement that can give countries the fiscal space needed to invest in the global HIV response”, UNAIDS notes. “Urgent action and revived solidarity are needed to sustain the progress made and prevent a resurgence of HIV.” Image Credits: UNAIDS. After Ebola and Bombings, What Has the World Learned? 10/07/2025 Health Policy Watch Dr Joanne Liu, a veteran humanitarian and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has seen the front lines of global health crises—from Ebola in West Africa to bombed-out hospitals in Afghanistan. But her message today is clear: “An imperfect solution is better than no solution.” Speaking on the Global Health Matters podcast, Liu reflected on the values that shaped her career, the lessons learned during her years at MSF, and her call for renewed global solidarity. “Young people come into my ER and tell me they don’t want to live any more,” she said. “They feel trapped in a cruel and unfair world. I want to convince them it’s better to fight than give up.” In her new book, Ebola, Bombs, and Migrants, Liu recounts how fear and political interests often override humanitarian needs. She recalled how the world ignored West Africa’s Ebola crisis until the virus reached Europe and the U.S. “States don’t have friends—they have interests,” she said. Liu also discussed the devastating U.S. airstrike on MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed 42 people. “We called everyone—the Pentagon, the UN—but no one stopped it,” she said. The attack pushed MSF to campaign for stronger protections for medical missions. Liu is now focused on shifting the power dynamics within global health. “For every international staff member, there are nine or ten locally hired,” she said. “We need to rebalance who holds influence.” Despite setbacks, Liu remains hopeful. “There is beauty everywhere,” she said. “It’s action that brings hope, and hope that brings action.” Listen to more episodes of the Global Health Matters podcast on Health Policy Watch. Image Credits: Global Health Matters podcast. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Has a New $4.2 million Contract Pending with Boston Consulting Group 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly in May, where WHO member states approved a stripped-down base budget of $4.2 billion for the next two years (2026-27). The World Health Organization has a draft $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group pending in its Global Management System (GSM), Health Policy Watch has learned – even while Save the Children has suspended its connection to BCG, over the reported involvement of two former staff members in the development of controversial projects in Gaza. If approved and executed, the new WHO contract would be the second one in six months to be awarded to BCG. Some $2,849,745 was spent by WHO on the Boston-based consultancy between 7 April and 15 May, according to GSM records seen by Health Policy Watch – to support the first phase of WHO’s massive restructuring. The WHO reorganization has been triggered by the January withdrawal of WHO’s largest donor, the United States, and a subsequent budget crisis that left a $1.7 billion hole in WHO’s planned $4.2 billion base budget [not including emergencies] for the next two years (2026-2027). The initial BCG consultancy was disclosed by Health Policy Watch in April, after it was discussed at a WHO ‘Town Hall’ convened by senior management. At the time, WHO Staff Association President Catherine Kirorei Corsini told WHO colleagues that the consultancy was being financed by “voluntary and earmarked funding from Bill and Melinda Gates…. And this because it’s voluntary and earmarked, it cannot be used for anything else.” Her remarks were confirmed later by a WHO spokesperson. Continuation of a second phase Sampling disease-carrying mosquitos in Latin America; fears that pending budget cuts will gut the rank and file WHO staff first of all. But according to the terms of reference attached to the first BCG contract, seen by Health Policy Watch, the $2.849 million consultancy that ran from 7 April-15 May, was only “Phase 1”, to be followed by a longer and larger Phase 2 that would further “implementation” of HR restructuring “to support long-term strategic objectives” as well as support “procurement savings to maximize cost-efficiency.” Should that second contract for $4.295 million be approved, that would make for a massive $7.144 million in consultancy awards to the firm over a period of less than a year. Asked to comment on the pending continuation of the work to a second phase, the amounts involved, or the issues around the past activities of BCG staff or former staff in Gaza, WHO did not respond as of publication time. BCG also did not respond to queries by Health Policy Watch. However, regardless of reputational issues, WHO staff have also questioned why the organization should be spending millions on external consultants to advise on its reorganization – at a time when its also facing massive staff cuts. Save the Children suspension Save the Children Clinic in Deir al Balah, northern Gaza. The organization has a network of humanitarian operations across the war-torn enclave. On Tuesday, Save the Children reportedly “suspended” its decades-long relationship with BCG, citing “utterly unacceptable” work on Gaza-related projects – including a plan to relocate about a quarter of Gaza Palestinians out of the enclave following a cease-fire, a decision reported by The New Humanitarian. “We suspended our work with BCG on June 13 and we are now awaiting the outcome of their review,” Save the Children spokesperson Belinda Goldsmith was quoted saying in an email to TNH on 8 July. Save the Children’s decision followed a report last Friday by the Financial Times that BCG had “modeled” the costs of relocating Palestinians out of Gaza as part of a politically controversial post-war reconstruction plan. Breaking news: Boston Consulting Group modelled the costs of ‘relocating’ Palestinians from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch a new aid scheme for the shattered enclave https://t.co/VsVK7igBQQ pic.twitter.com/GObRV5qQHq — Financial Times (@FT) July 4, 2025 Earlier in June, the FT also reported that BCG staff had also been involved in the early stages of planning for the conflict-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Israeli and US-supported entity that began distributing food aid in Gaza last month tried to sidestep UN aid channels, but soon became mired in controversy as hundreds of Palestinians were killed traveling to and from the Foundation’s four distribution sides over the past several weeks. In an 8 July email to all staff, Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing referred to the FT’s reporting on BCG’s involvement with the controversial GHF and “modelling a plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians from Gaza” as “utterly unacceptable”, TNH reported. “Following that, we suspended all ongoing work with BCG pending the outcome of their external investigation and asked all Member teams to do the same,” wrote Ashing, to national-level Save the Children organisations. BCG has repudiated its connection to controversial Gaza projects Only the most able-bodied can run the gauntlet to reach Gaza’s food distribution points, which include four GHF outposts and scattered UN delivery points. In a response dubbed “correcting the record” Sunday, 6 July, BCG said that two former partners had engaged secretly in a Gaza post-conflict evacuation cost assessment – without BCG’s knowledge. “Recent media reporting has misrepresented BCG’s role in post-war Gaza reconstruction,” BCG stated. “Two former partners initiated this work, even though the lead partner was categorically told not to. This work was not a BCG project. It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. We fully disavow this work. BCG was not paid for any of this work. As for the earlier work in relation to the GHF, BCG said that: “In October 2024, a BCG team from the U.S., led by two partners, provided pro bono support to help establish an aid organization intended to operate alongside other relief efforts to deliver humanitarian support to Gaza. They failed to disclose the full nature of the work. These individuals then carried out subsequent unauthorized work. “Their actions reflected a serious failure of judgment and adherence to our standards. “We are shocked and outraged by the actions of these two partners. They have been exited from the firm. BCG disavows the work they undertook. It has been stopped, and BCG has not and will not be paid for any of their work. “We are acting with urgency and seriousness to learn from this and to ensure it does not happen again,” BCG added. “We deeply regret that in this situation we did not live up to our standards. We are committed to living our values—with accountability for our failures and humility in how we move forward.” Image Credits: Wikipedia , WHO/Pierre Albouy, PAHO/WHO, Save the Children , X/Channel 4 . NIH-funded Human Trials Outside US Get Temporary Funding Reprieve 09/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A trial participant is prepared for a blood test as part of a trial of new TB drugs that can overcome drug resistant pathogens. Several HIV and TB trials were suspended following recent changes in US policy. Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a result, some clinical trials on humans were halted midway despite dangers to trial participants and the huge waste of money. However, the payment freeze to several NIH subawardees in South Africa was recently lifted, according the journal, Science, which reported that “an alternative payment scheme … could allow those studies to continue”. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become a “preferred site” for HIV and tuberculosis research, both because of its high burden of HIV and TB and the excellence of its scientific community, according to Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, head of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). It has been disproportionately affected by the NIH’s change in policy towards subawards, which jeopardised at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials, according to an analysis by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 2024, the NIH funded about 3,600 foreign subawards worth more than $400 million, according to Science. The NIH wants to control allocations to foreign research groups, stipulating that they will need to apply directly to NIH for grants, not go via third parties. However, it will only have the new award procedures in place by 30 September, leaving thousands of research projects in limbo. Explaining its position in an announcement on 1 May, the NIH said that it wants to “maintain strong, productive, and secure foreign collaborations” and “ensure it can transparently and reliably report on each dollar spent”. As a result, NIH “is establishing a new award structure that will prohibit foreign subawards from being nested under the parent grant. This new award structure will include a prime with independent awards that are linked to the prime that will allow NIH to track the project’s funds individually,” according to the announcement. However, it now appears to have made exceptions for clinical trials involving people in the interim. “Staff guidance dated 30 June maintains that grant renewal and new applications including a foreign subaward submitted after 1 May will not be reviewed until the new tracking system is in place,” according to Science. “But the document describes an exception for human subject research in applications submitted earlier, and for ongoing human studies. As a temporary measure, NIH grants staff can convert the subawards within these projects to special ‘supplements’ to the main grant that will go directly to the foreign collaborator, the document says.” NIH official Michelle Bulls informed grants staff in a memo on 27 June that, although no new awards can be made to South Africa, “existing subawards with clinical research can continue under the new ‘supplement’ plan… and ongoing prime awards to South African researchers, which make up about 100 of the country’s NIH grants, ‘may proceed’,” according to Science. Prof Ian Sanne, co-principal investigator of the Wits HIV Research Group Clinical Trials Unit, earlier described navigating the US funding cuts as a “major regulatory and ethics nightmare”. One of the studies Sanne oversaw that was terminated involved a trial of microbicide rings filled with slow-release antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV that were inserted vaginally in trial participants, many of whom were at high risk of HIV infection. However, restarting the research is not a simple matter as, in the two-month pause in NIH payments, trial participants have dispersed and research staff have been retrenched. In addition, there is no guarantee that current subawards will qualify for awards under the new system. NIH targets journal fees Meanwhile, the NIH announced this week that it was cracking down on “excessive publisher fees for publicly funded research”. The NIH claimed that “some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. “For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.” In 2026, the NIH will introduce a cap on “allowable publication costs” (APC) to ensure that publication fees “remain reasonable across the research ecosystem”. “This policy marks a critical step in protecting the integrity of the scientific publishing system while ensuring that public investments in research deliver maximum public benefit,” said NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Image Credits: TB Alliance. Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
Millions at Risk of HIV Infection and Death After US Funding Cuts, Warns UNAIDS 10/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan Luyengo Clinic in Eswatini. PEPFAR funded 80% of the clinic’s running cost, and the HIV treatment of 3,000 people is now in jeopardy. An additional six million new HIV infections and four million AIDS-related deaths could occur between 2025 and 2029 if US-supported HIV treatment and prevention services collapse, according to UNAIDS. “This is not just a funding gap. It’s a ticking time bomb,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima at the launch of the organisation’s 2025 global AIDS update on Thursday. “We have seen services vanish overnight. Health workers have been sent home. And people – especially children and key populations – are being pushed out of care.” “Key populations” refer to people most vulnerable to HIV infection, including sex workers, men to have sex with men, people who inject drugs and young women. Some of the immediate effects of the US withdrawal of funds since Donald Trump assumed the presidency in January include the closure of health facilities, healthworker job losses, and disrupted treatment, testing and prevention services. Impact of aid cuts on HIV infections and deaths The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) had committed $4.3 billion in bilateral support in 2025 and “those services were stopped overnight when the US government shifted its foreign assistance strategies,” notes the UNAIDS report. PEPFAR had supported HIV testing for 84.1 million people and HIV treatment for 20.6 million people. “Disruptions are being felt across the HIV response and pose a huge risk of increased mortality, a surge of new HIV infections, and the development of resistance to the most commonly used treatment regimens.” In Mozambique, for example, over 30,000 health personnel have lost their jobs. UNAIDS itself faces huge job losses, and is reducing its Geneva head office staff from 127 to a mere 19 employees, according to a report this week by Geneva Solutions. The UN agency’s restructuring plan will cut staff by 54% globally, leaving 280 staff worldwide. HIV prevention programmes hit hard Country reliance on aid for HIV prevention. External funding financed almost 80% of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, 66% in the Caribbean and 60% in the Middle East and North Africa, according to UNAIDS. PEPFAR alone reached 2.3 million adolescent girls and young women with comprehensive HIV prevention services in 2024 and enabled 2.5 million people to use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Many of these programmes have now stopped completely, according to UNAIDS. PrEP involves taking medication to prevent HIV infection and is usually taken by people at high risk of infection, and PEPFAR funded over 90% of PrEP initiations globally in 2024. “Countries are reporting limited availability of PrEP and reduced activities to prevent new HIV acquisitions, including among adolescent girls and young women,” said UNAIDS. In Nigeria, budget cuts have reduced PrEP initiation from 40,000 to 6000 people per month. At the end of 2024, just before a sudden collapse in funding, new HIV infections had been reduced by 40% and AIDS-related deaths by 56% since 2010, Byanyima notes in the report. Countries had also reduced the annual number of children acquiring HIV from their mothers by 62% to 120,000 since 2010. However, prevention efforts were already flatlining before the withdrawal of US aid. In 2024, there were 1.3 million new infections, which was almost the same as the year before. “Over 210,000 girls and young women aged 15 to 24 acquired HIV in 2024 – an average of 570 new infections every day,” according to the UNAIDS report. In 2024, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related causes, 61% of them in sub-Saharan Africa. “Community-led services, which are vital to reaching marginalised populations, are being defunded at alarming rates,” said UNAIDS. “In early 2025, over 60% of women-led HIV organisations surveyed had lost funding or were forced to suspend services.” Domestic budgets inadequate Only 25 of the 60 low- and middle-income countries included in the report have increased their domestic budgets for HIV in 2026. The average increase amounts to 8%, approximately $180 million in additional domestic resources. “This is promising, but not sufficient to replace the scale of international funding in countries that are heavily reliant,” UNAIDS notes. “It is important for donors to recognize that the option of increasing domestic HIV funding is not immediately or equally available to all countries,” UNAIDS notes. “Combinations of debt distress, slow economic growth and underperforming tax systems leave many countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, with limited fiscal space to increase their domestic funding for HIV. “ It cites the recent International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville in Spain, as offering a way forward with “calls for debt relief, international tax cooperation and reform of international financial institutions”. These measure would provide “the first steps towards a new economic settlement that can give countries the fiscal space needed to invest in the global HIV response”, UNAIDS notes. “Urgent action and revived solidarity are needed to sustain the progress made and prevent a resurgence of HIV.” Image Credits: UNAIDS. After Ebola and Bombings, What Has the World Learned? 10/07/2025 Health Policy Watch Dr Joanne Liu, a veteran humanitarian and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has seen the front lines of global health crises—from Ebola in West Africa to bombed-out hospitals in Afghanistan. But her message today is clear: “An imperfect solution is better than no solution.” Speaking on the Global Health Matters podcast, Liu reflected on the values that shaped her career, the lessons learned during her years at MSF, and her call for renewed global solidarity. “Young people come into my ER and tell me they don’t want to live any more,” she said. “They feel trapped in a cruel and unfair world. I want to convince them it’s better to fight than give up.” In her new book, Ebola, Bombs, and Migrants, Liu recounts how fear and political interests often override humanitarian needs. She recalled how the world ignored West Africa’s Ebola crisis until the virus reached Europe and the U.S. “States don’t have friends—they have interests,” she said. Liu also discussed the devastating U.S. airstrike on MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed 42 people. “We called everyone—the Pentagon, the UN—but no one stopped it,” she said. The attack pushed MSF to campaign for stronger protections for medical missions. Liu is now focused on shifting the power dynamics within global health. “For every international staff member, there are nine or ten locally hired,” she said. “We need to rebalance who holds influence.” Despite setbacks, Liu remains hopeful. “There is beauty everywhere,” she said. “It’s action that brings hope, and hope that brings action.” Listen to more episodes of the Global Health Matters podcast on Health Policy Watch. Image Credits: Global Health Matters podcast. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Has a New $4.2 million Contract Pending with Boston Consulting Group 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly in May, where WHO member states approved a stripped-down base budget of $4.2 billion for the next two years (2026-27). The World Health Organization has a draft $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group pending in its Global Management System (GSM), Health Policy Watch has learned – even while Save the Children has suspended its connection to BCG, over the reported involvement of two former staff members in the development of controversial projects in Gaza. If approved and executed, the new WHO contract would be the second one in six months to be awarded to BCG. Some $2,849,745 was spent by WHO on the Boston-based consultancy between 7 April and 15 May, according to GSM records seen by Health Policy Watch – to support the first phase of WHO’s massive restructuring. The WHO reorganization has been triggered by the January withdrawal of WHO’s largest donor, the United States, and a subsequent budget crisis that left a $1.7 billion hole in WHO’s planned $4.2 billion base budget [not including emergencies] for the next two years (2026-2027). The initial BCG consultancy was disclosed by Health Policy Watch in April, after it was discussed at a WHO ‘Town Hall’ convened by senior management. At the time, WHO Staff Association President Catherine Kirorei Corsini told WHO colleagues that the consultancy was being financed by “voluntary and earmarked funding from Bill and Melinda Gates…. And this because it’s voluntary and earmarked, it cannot be used for anything else.” Her remarks were confirmed later by a WHO spokesperson. Continuation of a second phase Sampling disease-carrying mosquitos in Latin America; fears that pending budget cuts will gut the rank and file WHO staff first of all. But according to the terms of reference attached to the first BCG contract, seen by Health Policy Watch, the $2.849 million consultancy that ran from 7 April-15 May, was only “Phase 1”, to be followed by a longer and larger Phase 2 that would further “implementation” of HR restructuring “to support long-term strategic objectives” as well as support “procurement savings to maximize cost-efficiency.” Should that second contract for $4.295 million be approved, that would make for a massive $7.144 million in consultancy awards to the firm over a period of less than a year. Asked to comment on the pending continuation of the work to a second phase, the amounts involved, or the issues around the past activities of BCG staff or former staff in Gaza, WHO did not respond as of publication time. BCG also did not respond to queries by Health Policy Watch. However, regardless of reputational issues, WHO staff have also questioned why the organization should be spending millions on external consultants to advise on its reorganization – at a time when its also facing massive staff cuts. Save the Children suspension Save the Children Clinic in Deir al Balah, northern Gaza. The organization has a network of humanitarian operations across the war-torn enclave. On Tuesday, Save the Children reportedly “suspended” its decades-long relationship with BCG, citing “utterly unacceptable” work on Gaza-related projects – including a plan to relocate about a quarter of Gaza Palestinians out of the enclave following a cease-fire, a decision reported by The New Humanitarian. “We suspended our work with BCG on June 13 and we are now awaiting the outcome of their review,” Save the Children spokesperson Belinda Goldsmith was quoted saying in an email to TNH on 8 July. Save the Children’s decision followed a report last Friday by the Financial Times that BCG had “modeled” the costs of relocating Palestinians out of Gaza as part of a politically controversial post-war reconstruction plan. Breaking news: Boston Consulting Group modelled the costs of ‘relocating’ Palestinians from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch a new aid scheme for the shattered enclave https://t.co/VsVK7igBQQ pic.twitter.com/GObRV5qQHq — Financial Times (@FT) July 4, 2025 Earlier in June, the FT also reported that BCG staff had also been involved in the early stages of planning for the conflict-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Israeli and US-supported entity that began distributing food aid in Gaza last month tried to sidestep UN aid channels, but soon became mired in controversy as hundreds of Palestinians were killed traveling to and from the Foundation’s four distribution sides over the past several weeks. In an 8 July email to all staff, Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing referred to the FT’s reporting on BCG’s involvement with the controversial GHF and “modelling a plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians from Gaza” as “utterly unacceptable”, TNH reported. “Following that, we suspended all ongoing work with BCG pending the outcome of their external investigation and asked all Member teams to do the same,” wrote Ashing, to national-level Save the Children organisations. BCG has repudiated its connection to controversial Gaza projects Only the most able-bodied can run the gauntlet to reach Gaza’s food distribution points, which include four GHF outposts and scattered UN delivery points. In a response dubbed “correcting the record” Sunday, 6 July, BCG said that two former partners had engaged secretly in a Gaza post-conflict evacuation cost assessment – without BCG’s knowledge. “Recent media reporting has misrepresented BCG’s role in post-war Gaza reconstruction,” BCG stated. “Two former partners initiated this work, even though the lead partner was categorically told not to. This work was not a BCG project. It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. We fully disavow this work. BCG was not paid for any of this work. As for the earlier work in relation to the GHF, BCG said that: “In October 2024, a BCG team from the U.S., led by two partners, provided pro bono support to help establish an aid organization intended to operate alongside other relief efforts to deliver humanitarian support to Gaza. They failed to disclose the full nature of the work. These individuals then carried out subsequent unauthorized work. “Their actions reflected a serious failure of judgment and adherence to our standards. “We are shocked and outraged by the actions of these two partners. They have been exited from the firm. BCG disavows the work they undertook. It has been stopped, and BCG has not and will not be paid for any of their work. “We are acting with urgency and seriousness to learn from this and to ensure it does not happen again,” BCG added. “We deeply regret that in this situation we did not live up to our standards. We are committed to living our values—with accountability for our failures and humility in how we move forward.” Image Credits: Wikipedia , WHO/Pierre Albouy, PAHO/WHO, Save the Children , X/Channel 4 . NIH-funded Human Trials Outside US Get Temporary Funding Reprieve 09/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A trial participant is prepared for a blood test as part of a trial of new TB drugs that can overcome drug resistant pathogens. Several HIV and TB trials were suspended following recent changes in US policy. Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a result, some clinical trials on humans were halted midway despite dangers to trial participants and the huge waste of money. However, the payment freeze to several NIH subawardees in South Africa was recently lifted, according the journal, Science, which reported that “an alternative payment scheme … could allow those studies to continue”. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become a “preferred site” for HIV and tuberculosis research, both because of its high burden of HIV and TB and the excellence of its scientific community, according to Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, head of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). It has been disproportionately affected by the NIH’s change in policy towards subawards, which jeopardised at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials, according to an analysis by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 2024, the NIH funded about 3,600 foreign subawards worth more than $400 million, according to Science. The NIH wants to control allocations to foreign research groups, stipulating that they will need to apply directly to NIH for grants, not go via third parties. However, it will only have the new award procedures in place by 30 September, leaving thousands of research projects in limbo. Explaining its position in an announcement on 1 May, the NIH said that it wants to “maintain strong, productive, and secure foreign collaborations” and “ensure it can transparently and reliably report on each dollar spent”. As a result, NIH “is establishing a new award structure that will prohibit foreign subawards from being nested under the parent grant. This new award structure will include a prime with independent awards that are linked to the prime that will allow NIH to track the project’s funds individually,” according to the announcement. However, it now appears to have made exceptions for clinical trials involving people in the interim. “Staff guidance dated 30 June maintains that grant renewal and new applications including a foreign subaward submitted after 1 May will not be reviewed until the new tracking system is in place,” according to Science. “But the document describes an exception for human subject research in applications submitted earlier, and for ongoing human studies. As a temporary measure, NIH grants staff can convert the subawards within these projects to special ‘supplements’ to the main grant that will go directly to the foreign collaborator, the document says.” NIH official Michelle Bulls informed grants staff in a memo on 27 June that, although no new awards can be made to South Africa, “existing subawards with clinical research can continue under the new ‘supplement’ plan… and ongoing prime awards to South African researchers, which make up about 100 of the country’s NIH grants, ‘may proceed’,” according to Science. Prof Ian Sanne, co-principal investigator of the Wits HIV Research Group Clinical Trials Unit, earlier described navigating the US funding cuts as a “major regulatory and ethics nightmare”. One of the studies Sanne oversaw that was terminated involved a trial of microbicide rings filled with slow-release antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV that were inserted vaginally in trial participants, many of whom were at high risk of HIV infection. However, restarting the research is not a simple matter as, in the two-month pause in NIH payments, trial participants have dispersed and research staff have been retrenched. In addition, there is no guarantee that current subawards will qualify for awards under the new system. NIH targets journal fees Meanwhile, the NIH announced this week that it was cracking down on “excessive publisher fees for publicly funded research”. The NIH claimed that “some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. “For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.” In 2026, the NIH will introduce a cap on “allowable publication costs” (APC) to ensure that publication fees “remain reasonable across the research ecosystem”. “This policy marks a critical step in protecting the integrity of the scientific publishing system while ensuring that public investments in research deliver maximum public benefit,” said NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Image Credits: TB Alliance. Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
After Ebola and Bombings, What Has the World Learned? 10/07/2025 Health Policy Watch Dr Joanne Liu, a veteran humanitarian and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has seen the front lines of global health crises—from Ebola in West Africa to bombed-out hospitals in Afghanistan. But her message today is clear: “An imperfect solution is better than no solution.” Speaking on the Global Health Matters podcast, Liu reflected on the values that shaped her career, the lessons learned during her years at MSF, and her call for renewed global solidarity. “Young people come into my ER and tell me they don’t want to live any more,” she said. “They feel trapped in a cruel and unfair world. I want to convince them it’s better to fight than give up.” In her new book, Ebola, Bombs, and Migrants, Liu recounts how fear and political interests often override humanitarian needs. She recalled how the world ignored West Africa’s Ebola crisis until the virus reached Europe and the U.S. “States don’t have friends—they have interests,” she said. Liu also discussed the devastating U.S. airstrike on MSF’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed 42 people. “We called everyone—the Pentagon, the UN—but no one stopped it,” she said. The attack pushed MSF to campaign for stronger protections for medical missions. Liu is now focused on shifting the power dynamics within global health. “For every international staff member, there are nine or ten locally hired,” she said. “We need to rebalance who holds influence.” Despite setbacks, Liu remains hopeful. “There is beauty everywhere,” she said. “It’s action that brings hope, and hope that brings action.” Listen to more episodes of the Global Health Matters podcast on Health Policy Watch. Image Credits: Global Health Matters podcast. EXCLUSIVE: WHO Has a New $4.2 million Contract Pending with Boston Consulting Group 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly in May, where WHO member states approved a stripped-down base budget of $4.2 billion for the next two years (2026-27). The World Health Organization has a draft $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group pending in its Global Management System (GSM), Health Policy Watch has learned – even while Save the Children has suspended its connection to BCG, over the reported involvement of two former staff members in the development of controversial projects in Gaza. If approved and executed, the new WHO contract would be the second one in six months to be awarded to BCG. Some $2,849,745 was spent by WHO on the Boston-based consultancy between 7 April and 15 May, according to GSM records seen by Health Policy Watch – to support the first phase of WHO’s massive restructuring. The WHO reorganization has been triggered by the January withdrawal of WHO’s largest donor, the United States, and a subsequent budget crisis that left a $1.7 billion hole in WHO’s planned $4.2 billion base budget [not including emergencies] for the next two years (2026-2027). The initial BCG consultancy was disclosed by Health Policy Watch in April, after it was discussed at a WHO ‘Town Hall’ convened by senior management. At the time, WHO Staff Association President Catherine Kirorei Corsini told WHO colleagues that the consultancy was being financed by “voluntary and earmarked funding from Bill and Melinda Gates…. And this because it’s voluntary and earmarked, it cannot be used for anything else.” Her remarks were confirmed later by a WHO spokesperson. Continuation of a second phase Sampling disease-carrying mosquitos in Latin America; fears that pending budget cuts will gut the rank and file WHO staff first of all. But according to the terms of reference attached to the first BCG contract, seen by Health Policy Watch, the $2.849 million consultancy that ran from 7 April-15 May, was only “Phase 1”, to be followed by a longer and larger Phase 2 that would further “implementation” of HR restructuring “to support long-term strategic objectives” as well as support “procurement savings to maximize cost-efficiency.” Should that second contract for $4.295 million be approved, that would make for a massive $7.144 million in consultancy awards to the firm over a period of less than a year. Asked to comment on the pending continuation of the work to a second phase, the amounts involved, or the issues around the past activities of BCG staff or former staff in Gaza, WHO did not respond as of publication time. BCG also did not respond to queries by Health Policy Watch. However, regardless of reputational issues, WHO staff have also questioned why the organization should be spending millions on external consultants to advise on its reorganization – at a time when its also facing massive staff cuts. Save the Children suspension Save the Children Clinic in Deir al Balah, northern Gaza. The organization has a network of humanitarian operations across the war-torn enclave. On Tuesday, Save the Children reportedly “suspended” its decades-long relationship with BCG, citing “utterly unacceptable” work on Gaza-related projects – including a plan to relocate about a quarter of Gaza Palestinians out of the enclave following a cease-fire, a decision reported by The New Humanitarian. “We suspended our work with BCG on June 13 and we are now awaiting the outcome of their review,” Save the Children spokesperson Belinda Goldsmith was quoted saying in an email to TNH on 8 July. Save the Children’s decision followed a report last Friday by the Financial Times that BCG had “modeled” the costs of relocating Palestinians out of Gaza as part of a politically controversial post-war reconstruction plan. Breaking news: Boston Consulting Group modelled the costs of ‘relocating’ Palestinians from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch a new aid scheme for the shattered enclave https://t.co/VsVK7igBQQ pic.twitter.com/GObRV5qQHq — Financial Times (@FT) July 4, 2025 Earlier in June, the FT also reported that BCG staff had also been involved in the early stages of planning for the conflict-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Israeli and US-supported entity that began distributing food aid in Gaza last month tried to sidestep UN aid channels, but soon became mired in controversy as hundreds of Palestinians were killed traveling to and from the Foundation’s four distribution sides over the past several weeks. In an 8 July email to all staff, Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing referred to the FT’s reporting on BCG’s involvement with the controversial GHF and “modelling a plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians from Gaza” as “utterly unacceptable”, TNH reported. “Following that, we suspended all ongoing work with BCG pending the outcome of their external investigation and asked all Member teams to do the same,” wrote Ashing, to national-level Save the Children organisations. BCG has repudiated its connection to controversial Gaza projects Only the most able-bodied can run the gauntlet to reach Gaza’s food distribution points, which include four GHF outposts and scattered UN delivery points. In a response dubbed “correcting the record” Sunday, 6 July, BCG said that two former partners had engaged secretly in a Gaza post-conflict evacuation cost assessment – without BCG’s knowledge. “Recent media reporting has misrepresented BCG’s role in post-war Gaza reconstruction,” BCG stated. “Two former partners initiated this work, even though the lead partner was categorically told not to. This work was not a BCG project. It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. We fully disavow this work. BCG was not paid for any of this work. As for the earlier work in relation to the GHF, BCG said that: “In October 2024, a BCG team from the U.S., led by two partners, provided pro bono support to help establish an aid organization intended to operate alongside other relief efforts to deliver humanitarian support to Gaza. They failed to disclose the full nature of the work. These individuals then carried out subsequent unauthorized work. “Their actions reflected a serious failure of judgment and adherence to our standards. “We are shocked and outraged by the actions of these two partners. They have been exited from the firm. BCG disavows the work they undertook. It has been stopped, and BCG has not and will not be paid for any of their work. “We are acting with urgency and seriousness to learn from this and to ensure it does not happen again,” BCG added. “We deeply regret that in this situation we did not live up to our standards. We are committed to living our values—with accountability for our failures and humility in how we move forward.” Image Credits: Wikipedia , WHO/Pierre Albouy, PAHO/WHO, Save the Children , X/Channel 4 . NIH-funded Human Trials Outside US Get Temporary Funding Reprieve 09/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A trial participant is prepared for a blood test as part of a trial of new TB drugs that can overcome drug resistant pathogens. Several HIV and TB trials were suspended following recent changes in US policy. Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a result, some clinical trials on humans were halted midway despite dangers to trial participants and the huge waste of money. However, the payment freeze to several NIH subawardees in South Africa was recently lifted, according the journal, Science, which reported that “an alternative payment scheme … could allow those studies to continue”. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become a “preferred site” for HIV and tuberculosis research, both because of its high burden of HIV and TB and the excellence of its scientific community, according to Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, head of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). It has been disproportionately affected by the NIH’s change in policy towards subawards, which jeopardised at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials, according to an analysis by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 2024, the NIH funded about 3,600 foreign subawards worth more than $400 million, according to Science. The NIH wants to control allocations to foreign research groups, stipulating that they will need to apply directly to NIH for grants, not go via third parties. However, it will only have the new award procedures in place by 30 September, leaving thousands of research projects in limbo. Explaining its position in an announcement on 1 May, the NIH said that it wants to “maintain strong, productive, and secure foreign collaborations” and “ensure it can transparently and reliably report on each dollar spent”. As a result, NIH “is establishing a new award structure that will prohibit foreign subawards from being nested under the parent grant. This new award structure will include a prime with independent awards that are linked to the prime that will allow NIH to track the project’s funds individually,” according to the announcement. However, it now appears to have made exceptions for clinical trials involving people in the interim. “Staff guidance dated 30 June maintains that grant renewal and new applications including a foreign subaward submitted after 1 May will not be reviewed until the new tracking system is in place,” according to Science. “But the document describes an exception for human subject research in applications submitted earlier, and for ongoing human studies. As a temporary measure, NIH grants staff can convert the subawards within these projects to special ‘supplements’ to the main grant that will go directly to the foreign collaborator, the document says.” NIH official Michelle Bulls informed grants staff in a memo on 27 June that, although no new awards can be made to South Africa, “existing subawards with clinical research can continue under the new ‘supplement’ plan… and ongoing prime awards to South African researchers, which make up about 100 of the country’s NIH grants, ‘may proceed’,” according to Science. Prof Ian Sanne, co-principal investigator of the Wits HIV Research Group Clinical Trials Unit, earlier described navigating the US funding cuts as a “major regulatory and ethics nightmare”. One of the studies Sanne oversaw that was terminated involved a trial of microbicide rings filled with slow-release antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV that were inserted vaginally in trial participants, many of whom were at high risk of HIV infection. However, restarting the research is not a simple matter as, in the two-month pause in NIH payments, trial participants have dispersed and research staff have been retrenched. In addition, there is no guarantee that current subawards will qualify for awards under the new system. NIH targets journal fees Meanwhile, the NIH announced this week that it was cracking down on “excessive publisher fees for publicly funded research”. The NIH claimed that “some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. “For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.” In 2026, the NIH will introduce a cap on “allowable publication costs” (APC) to ensure that publication fees “remain reasonable across the research ecosystem”. “This policy marks a critical step in protecting the integrity of the scientific publishing system while ensuring that public investments in research deliver maximum public benefit,” said NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Image Credits: TB Alliance. Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
EXCLUSIVE: WHO Has a New $4.2 million Contract Pending with Boston Consulting Group 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly in May, where WHO member states approved a stripped-down base budget of $4.2 billion for the next two years (2026-27). The World Health Organization has a draft $4.295 million contract with the Boston Consulting Group pending in its Global Management System (GSM), Health Policy Watch has learned – even while Save the Children has suspended its connection to BCG, over the reported involvement of two former staff members in the development of controversial projects in Gaza. If approved and executed, the new WHO contract would be the second one in six months to be awarded to BCG. Some $2,849,745 was spent by WHO on the Boston-based consultancy between 7 April and 15 May, according to GSM records seen by Health Policy Watch – to support the first phase of WHO’s massive restructuring. The WHO reorganization has been triggered by the January withdrawal of WHO’s largest donor, the United States, and a subsequent budget crisis that left a $1.7 billion hole in WHO’s planned $4.2 billion base budget [not including emergencies] for the next two years (2026-2027). The initial BCG consultancy was disclosed by Health Policy Watch in April, after it was discussed at a WHO ‘Town Hall’ convened by senior management. At the time, WHO Staff Association President Catherine Kirorei Corsini told WHO colleagues that the consultancy was being financed by “voluntary and earmarked funding from Bill and Melinda Gates…. And this because it’s voluntary and earmarked, it cannot be used for anything else.” Her remarks were confirmed later by a WHO spokesperson. Continuation of a second phase Sampling disease-carrying mosquitos in Latin America; fears that pending budget cuts will gut the rank and file WHO staff first of all. But according to the terms of reference attached to the first BCG contract, seen by Health Policy Watch, the $2.849 million consultancy that ran from 7 April-15 May, was only “Phase 1”, to be followed by a longer and larger Phase 2 that would further “implementation” of HR restructuring “to support long-term strategic objectives” as well as support “procurement savings to maximize cost-efficiency.” Should that second contract for $4.295 million be approved, that would make for a massive $7.144 million in consultancy awards to the firm over a period of less than a year. Asked to comment on the pending continuation of the work to a second phase, the amounts involved, or the issues around the past activities of BCG staff or former staff in Gaza, WHO did not respond as of publication time. BCG also did not respond to queries by Health Policy Watch. However, regardless of reputational issues, WHO staff have also questioned why the organization should be spending millions on external consultants to advise on its reorganization – at a time when its also facing massive staff cuts. Save the Children suspension Save the Children Clinic in Deir al Balah, northern Gaza. The organization has a network of humanitarian operations across the war-torn enclave. On Tuesday, Save the Children reportedly “suspended” its decades-long relationship with BCG, citing “utterly unacceptable” work on Gaza-related projects – including a plan to relocate about a quarter of Gaza Palestinians out of the enclave following a cease-fire, a decision reported by The New Humanitarian. “We suspended our work with BCG on June 13 and we are now awaiting the outcome of their review,” Save the Children spokesperson Belinda Goldsmith was quoted saying in an email to TNH on 8 July. Save the Children’s decision followed a report last Friday by the Financial Times that BCG had “modeled” the costs of relocating Palestinians out of Gaza as part of a politically controversial post-war reconstruction plan. Breaking news: Boston Consulting Group modelled the costs of ‘relocating’ Palestinians from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch a new aid scheme for the shattered enclave https://t.co/VsVK7igBQQ pic.twitter.com/GObRV5qQHq — Financial Times (@FT) July 4, 2025 Earlier in June, the FT also reported that BCG staff had also been involved in the early stages of planning for the conflict-plagued Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Israeli and US-supported entity that began distributing food aid in Gaza last month tried to sidestep UN aid channels, but soon became mired in controversy as hundreds of Palestinians were killed traveling to and from the Foundation’s four distribution sides over the past several weeks. In an 8 July email to all staff, Save the Children International CEO Inger Ashing referred to the FT’s reporting on BCG’s involvement with the controversial GHF and “modelling a plan to forcibly relocate Palestinians from Gaza” as “utterly unacceptable”, TNH reported. “Following that, we suspended all ongoing work with BCG pending the outcome of their external investigation and asked all Member teams to do the same,” wrote Ashing, to national-level Save the Children organisations. BCG has repudiated its connection to controversial Gaza projects Only the most able-bodied can run the gauntlet to reach Gaza’s food distribution points, which include four GHF outposts and scattered UN delivery points. In a response dubbed “correcting the record” Sunday, 6 July, BCG said that two former partners had engaged secretly in a Gaza post-conflict evacuation cost assessment – without BCG’s knowledge. “Recent media reporting has misrepresented BCG’s role in post-war Gaza reconstruction,” BCG stated. “Two former partners initiated this work, even though the lead partner was categorically told not to. This work was not a BCG project. It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. We fully disavow this work. BCG was not paid for any of this work. As for the earlier work in relation to the GHF, BCG said that: “In October 2024, a BCG team from the U.S., led by two partners, provided pro bono support to help establish an aid organization intended to operate alongside other relief efforts to deliver humanitarian support to Gaza. They failed to disclose the full nature of the work. These individuals then carried out subsequent unauthorized work. “Their actions reflected a serious failure of judgment and adherence to our standards. “We are shocked and outraged by the actions of these two partners. They have been exited from the firm. BCG disavows the work they undertook. It has been stopped, and BCG has not and will not be paid for any of their work. “We are acting with urgency and seriousness to learn from this and to ensure it does not happen again,” BCG added. “We deeply regret that in this situation we did not live up to our standards. We are committed to living our values—with accountability for our failures and humility in how we move forward.” Image Credits: Wikipedia , WHO/Pierre Albouy, PAHO/WHO, Save the Children , X/Channel 4 . NIH-funded Human Trials Outside US Get Temporary Funding Reprieve 09/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A trial participant is prepared for a blood test as part of a trial of new TB drugs that can overcome drug resistant pathogens. Several HIV and TB trials were suspended following recent changes in US policy. Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a result, some clinical trials on humans were halted midway despite dangers to trial participants and the huge waste of money. However, the payment freeze to several NIH subawardees in South Africa was recently lifted, according the journal, Science, which reported that “an alternative payment scheme … could allow those studies to continue”. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become a “preferred site” for HIV and tuberculosis research, both because of its high burden of HIV and TB and the excellence of its scientific community, according to Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, head of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). It has been disproportionately affected by the NIH’s change in policy towards subawards, which jeopardised at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials, according to an analysis by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 2024, the NIH funded about 3,600 foreign subawards worth more than $400 million, according to Science. The NIH wants to control allocations to foreign research groups, stipulating that they will need to apply directly to NIH for grants, not go via third parties. However, it will only have the new award procedures in place by 30 September, leaving thousands of research projects in limbo. Explaining its position in an announcement on 1 May, the NIH said that it wants to “maintain strong, productive, and secure foreign collaborations” and “ensure it can transparently and reliably report on each dollar spent”. As a result, NIH “is establishing a new award structure that will prohibit foreign subawards from being nested under the parent grant. This new award structure will include a prime with independent awards that are linked to the prime that will allow NIH to track the project’s funds individually,” according to the announcement. However, it now appears to have made exceptions for clinical trials involving people in the interim. “Staff guidance dated 30 June maintains that grant renewal and new applications including a foreign subaward submitted after 1 May will not be reviewed until the new tracking system is in place,” according to Science. “But the document describes an exception for human subject research in applications submitted earlier, and for ongoing human studies. As a temporary measure, NIH grants staff can convert the subawards within these projects to special ‘supplements’ to the main grant that will go directly to the foreign collaborator, the document says.” NIH official Michelle Bulls informed grants staff in a memo on 27 June that, although no new awards can be made to South Africa, “existing subawards with clinical research can continue under the new ‘supplement’ plan… and ongoing prime awards to South African researchers, which make up about 100 of the country’s NIH grants, ‘may proceed’,” according to Science. Prof Ian Sanne, co-principal investigator of the Wits HIV Research Group Clinical Trials Unit, earlier described navigating the US funding cuts as a “major regulatory and ethics nightmare”. One of the studies Sanne oversaw that was terminated involved a trial of microbicide rings filled with slow-release antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV that were inserted vaginally in trial participants, many of whom were at high risk of HIV infection. However, restarting the research is not a simple matter as, in the two-month pause in NIH payments, trial participants have dispersed and research staff have been retrenched. In addition, there is no guarantee that current subawards will qualify for awards under the new system. NIH targets journal fees Meanwhile, the NIH announced this week that it was cracking down on “excessive publisher fees for publicly funded research”. The NIH claimed that “some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. “For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.” In 2026, the NIH will introduce a cap on “allowable publication costs” (APC) to ensure that publication fees “remain reasonable across the research ecosystem”. “This policy marks a critical step in protecting the integrity of the scientific publishing system while ensuring that public investments in research deliver maximum public benefit,” said NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Image Credits: TB Alliance. Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
NIH-funded Human Trials Outside US Get Temporary Funding Reprieve 09/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A trial participant is prepared for a blood test as part of a trial of new TB drugs that can overcome drug resistant pathogens. Several HIV and TB trials were suspended following recent changes in US policy. Human trials conducted outside the United States with funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) halted by the Trump administration in May, may be permitted to continue. On 1 May, the NIH outlawed US researchers from making subawards to foreign research partners, jeopardising billions of dollars of research throughout the world. As a result, some clinical trials on humans were halted midway despite dangers to trial participants and the huge waste of money. However, the payment freeze to several NIH subawardees in South Africa was recently lifted, according the journal, Science, which reported that “an alternative payment scheme … could allow those studies to continue”. Over the past two decades, South Africa has become a “preferred site” for HIV and tuberculosis research, both because of its high burden of HIV and TB and the excellence of its scientific community, according to Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, head of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). It has been disproportionately affected by the NIH’s change in policy towards subawards, which jeopardised at least 27 HIV trials and 20 TB trials, according to an analysis by the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). In 2024, the NIH funded about 3,600 foreign subawards worth more than $400 million, according to Science. The NIH wants to control allocations to foreign research groups, stipulating that they will need to apply directly to NIH for grants, not go via third parties. However, it will only have the new award procedures in place by 30 September, leaving thousands of research projects in limbo. Explaining its position in an announcement on 1 May, the NIH said that it wants to “maintain strong, productive, and secure foreign collaborations” and “ensure it can transparently and reliably report on each dollar spent”. As a result, NIH “is establishing a new award structure that will prohibit foreign subawards from being nested under the parent grant. This new award structure will include a prime with independent awards that are linked to the prime that will allow NIH to track the project’s funds individually,” according to the announcement. However, it now appears to have made exceptions for clinical trials involving people in the interim. “Staff guidance dated 30 June maintains that grant renewal and new applications including a foreign subaward submitted after 1 May will not be reviewed until the new tracking system is in place,” according to Science. “But the document describes an exception for human subject research in applications submitted earlier, and for ongoing human studies. As a temporary measure, NIH grants staff can convert the subawards within these projects to special ‘supplements’ to the main grant that will go directly to the foreign collaborator, the document says.” NIH official Michelle Bulls informed grants staff in a memo on 27 June that, although no new awards can be made to South Africa, “existing subawards with clinical research can continue under the new ‘supplement’ plan… and ongoing prime awards to South African researchers, which make up about 100 of the country’s NIH grants, ‘may proceed’,” according to Science. Prof Ian Sanne, co-principal investigator of the Wits HIV Research Group Clinical Trials Unit, earlier described navigating the US funding cuts as a “major regulatory and ethics nightmare”. One of the studies Sanne oversaw that was terminated involved a trial of microbicide rings filled with slow-release antiretroviral medication to prevent HIV that were inserted vaginally in trial participants, many of whom were at high risk of HIV infection. However, restarting the research is not a simple matter as, in the two-month pause in NIH payments, trial participants have dispersed and research staff have been retrenched. In addition, there is no guarantee that current subawards will qualify for awards under the new system. NIH targets journal fees Meanwhile, the NIH announced this week that it was cracking down on “excessive publisher fees for publicly funded research”. The NIH claimed that “some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. “For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.” In 2026, the NIH will introduce a cap on “allowable publication costs” (APC) to ensure that publication fees “remain reasonable across the research ecosystem”. “This policy marks a critical step in protecting the integrity of the scientific publishing system while ensuring that public investments in research deliver maximum public benefit,” said NIH director Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Image Credits: TB Alliance. Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
Israeli Legal and Gender Advocates Call on UN to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence on 7 October 09/07/2025 Elaine Ruth Fletcher Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Israeli legal scholar and womens’ rights advocate at the briefing. A team of Israeli team of experts in law and gender have called on the United Nations to hold Hamas accountable for systematic use of sexual violence during attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza on 7 October, 2023, and in the course of holding some 251 Israelis and foreigners hostage over subsequent months. Speaking at a briefing with Geneva’s UN press corps on Wednesday, leading figures with The Dinah Project said the UN should outlaw, or blacklist, Hamas for using sexual violence, “as a tactical weapon of war” – while international courts should prosecute Hamas figures said to have led or carried out the violence. “The hope is to… set the historical record straight and to have it affirmed by as many organizations as possible, and building upon this, continue also on the international political level, said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,” a noted Israeli legal scholar and women’s rights advocate. She added. “We are hoping that the Secretary General will indeed follow on and blacklist Hamas.” A new report by the project, released Tuesday, cites at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including at least four instances of gang rape and other cases of genital mutilation, followed by the killing of the victims after their assault, during the 7 October attacks by Hamas gunmen, said Halperin-Kaddari, a lead author of the report. Nearly 1200 people died in the early morning Hamas assault on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip and young festival goers at the Nova music festival. Israeli Nova festival goers flee Hamas gunmen on the morning of 7 October, 2023; some were captured, raped and killed or raped, witnesses say. Over a dozen former Israeli hostages have also testified that they either experienced first hand, or witnessed, various forms of sexual assault – including sexual violence, forced nudity, verbal sexual harassment and threats of forced marriage, the report found. The highly technical report by the team of Israeli legal experts also calls for a broader set of evidentiary principles to govern the prosecution of sexual violence during conflicts more generally – saying that the direct testimony of wartime sexual violence victims is often impossible to collect – as many of them are subsequently killed. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk — creating unique evidentiary challenges,” the report stated. So cases need to rely not only upon the victims’ own testimony, but the evidence of witnesses and forensic evidence. And when a pattern of systematic violence is identified, not only individual perpetrators, but the leadership of an armed group should also be held to account. “If we use the regular criminal law paradigm, the result is impunity. You cannot actually point to a specific attacker, who attacked a specific victim,” said Nava Ben-Or, a retired Israeli judge, at the briefing. “We need to a mass atrocity [section of] criminal law, which will enable the justice system to bring these perpetrators to justice.” The report by the independent NGO was supported by the UK government as well as a variety of Israeli-and Jewish-affiliated foundations. Report builds upon UN fact-finding mission Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, briefs journalists in New York in March 2024. The project builds upon a report by a UN fact-finding mission last year, following a 17-day visit by Pramilla Patten, UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence and Conflict, to Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Her report found “reasonable grounds” to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence occured during the 7 October Hamas onslaught. There was also “clear and convincing” that hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, Patten said in a subsequent press release. Since Patten’s report, more Israeli hostages have been released from Gaza including some who relayed new evidence about sexual violence that they experienced directly, or witnessed, including some men as well as women, the Dinah Project’s authors note. Hamas did not comment immediately on the report. However, through the course of the grueling 21 month war, there have also been UN and Israeli media reports of sexualized forms of violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestinian detainees, particularly in Israel’s notorious Sde Teiman prison. And earlier this year, a report by a UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, asserted that gender-based and sexual violence, including forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment.. and sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians – allegations that Israel “categorically” rejected. Calls for a new standard for prosecuting sexual violence in the context of conflicts “I do not have any credence to opine what I think about, what my government is doing or not doing in Gaza,” said Halperin-Kaddari, in response to a reporter’s query about the broader charges that have since been levied against Israel for genocidal actions in Gaza since 7 October – including constant military attacks within civilian “safe zones” and restrictions on the entry of food, medicines and other humanitarian aid, as well as fuel and water. “We are not the government… This report is an independent work of academia, experts. … There were victims and they were not recognized. And Hamas is still viewed by too many organizations, too many countries, too many entities, including human rights entities…as part of the international human rights community, and hearing their silence….I take it as a total failure of the international human rights system,” Halperin-Kaddari added. “We demand that they come to terms with the realization that Hamas are deplorable as using the worst kind of crime against humanity of sexual violence in war.” The Dinah Project leaders said that they also want to convey a universal message condemning sexual and gender-based violence in conflict settings. “We established the Dinah Project to take action, not only regarding October 7 victims, but also around the world,” said Sharon Zagagi Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor, at the briefing. “And we aim to influence protocols and procedures around the world in different arenas, and the problems that and the challenges that we identified on October 7 are the same challenges that we identify in other places around the world. “It’s not just an Israeli initiative. It’s an initiative that is intended to continue and also to seek ways to help also victims, but also systems and organizations in finding ways to achieve accountability in cases of conflict related sexual violence around the world. Added Halperin Kaddari, “We have already started… to establish working relationships and contacts with other sister organizations, whether it is Yazidi women or women in Ukraine. There is already an umbrella chain of organizations that work on the same field, which we are part of, and we will certainly develop this outreach to other areas. “But we focus on the legal framework and on the legal theory. … And unfortunately, there is a universal need, and our message is indeed universal.” Image Credits: X/via Israel Ha Yom, UN News . Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy
Next Phase of Pandemic Talks Resumes, Tackling Tricky Issue of Sharing Pathogen Information 08/07/2025 Kerry Cullinan A researcher collects information on pathogens during a disease outbreak. How such information is shared in a fair and equitable way is the next phase of the pandemic agreement talks. The next – and tricky – phase of cementing the World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement resumes on Wednesday (9 July) with the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The IGWG’s main task is to negotiate an annex to the pandemic agreement on a pathogen access and benefit sharing (PABS) system. This system will set out how information about pathogens with pandemic potential is shared in a safe, transparent and accountable manner, and how those who share information will benefit from products that are developed as a result. It is a hot potato given tensions between intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies and wide access to affordable medical products. In addition, the IGWG will prepare the ground for the Conference of the Parties that will govern the pandemic agreement, and the terms of reference for a coordinating financial mechanism, which will help defend countries against outbreaks and pandemics. According to WHO legal officer Steven Solomon, the PABS annex has to be completed by 17 April 2026 to meet the deadline of submission to the World Health Assembly in May 2026. This means that the IGWG has merely nine months and eight days to complete its work to meet the deadline. This week’s meeting will be dedicated to electing the office-bearers, setting out timelines and modalities for engagement with relevant stakeholders. The first item on the IGWG agenda is the election of two co-chairs and four vice-chairs – one for each of the six WHO regions. As with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) that ran the pandemic agreement talks, the co-chairs are to reflect developing and developed countries. IGWG co-chair contender, the UK’s Dr Mathew Harpur. IGWG co-chair contender, Brazil’s Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, Brazil’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Dr Mathew Harpur, Deputy Director for Multilateral and G7/G20 Engagement for the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, are strong contenders for co-chairs, according to sources. The INB co-chairs, France’s Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and South Africa’s Precious Matsoso, are passing the baton to new leaders, although the pandemic agreement that they oversaw contains the outline of the PABS system. Addressing a recent meeting in Geneva, Amprou said that preparatory work for the implementation of the pandemic agreement should start as soon as possible, in parallel with negotiations on the annex. Amprou added that she though that the annex should be a short document and that “this negotiation should be much more technical than political [as] we know the political positions of different member states”. As with INB meetings, open sessions of the IGWG will be webcast and stake-holders in official relations with the WHO will be permitted to attend and contribute at certain times. Image Credits: Wildlife Conservation Society . Posts navigation Older posts