The World Health Organization (WHO) stands at a crossroads—one that could redefine its role in global health and reshape the global health research and development (R&D) ecosystem. In 2025, WHO faced a tumultuous year as several member states—including the United States and Argentina—moved to step back from the organization, citing concerns over its early COVID-19 response and broader calls for reform. These withdrawals, coupled with unpaid dues, have exacerbated existing budget shortfalls and triggered a sweeping restructuring effort aimed at slimming budget and operations, reorganizing leadership, and overhauling the organization’s structure.
Yet, how these parallel developments—member states’ retreat and WHO restructuring—are being managed by the health organization remains remarkably opaque. Decisions have unfolded largely behind closed doors, leaving researchers, product developers, regulators, and advocates struggling to understand where responsibilities now sit, how coordination is continuing—or not—and what critical functions may be falling through the cracks. Though WHO leadership has continued to express hope that the United States would reconsider its withdrawal, it is also unclear to what degree informal coordination between these two actors may continue, underscoring the uncertainty facing global health R&D at a moment when clarity and coordination are most needed.
WHO plays an irreplaceable role in supporting global health R&D, from setting research priorities and supporting regulatory convergence to coordinating disease surveillance and establishing norms that guide research. As WHO restructures and member states withdraw, these R&D functions risk erosion, creating gaps that could slow innovation, weaken outbreak preparedness, and undermine access to essential health, including both worldwide and in the United States. This blog explores what’s at stake and the unanswered questions that remain.
Function at risk: Technical and coordinative support for regulatory bodies
WHO’s research coordination role is reinforced—and amplified—through its technical and convening support for national and regional regulatory authorities. Argentina’s National Administration of Medicines, Food, and Medical Technology (ANMAT), for example, has been recognized by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)—WHO’s regional arm for the Americas—as a gold standard Regional Reference Regulatory Authority since 2011. In this capacity, ANMAT has advanced regulatory convergence, capacity-building, and reliance mechanisms across the Americas. Argentina’s retreat from WHO- and PAHO-led regulatory collaboration risks weakening a critical pillar of regional regulatory trust, slowing approvals of quality-assured medical products, and reducing timely access to medicines for patients throughout the region.
Beyond regional leadership, WHO’s technical and regulatory functions are tightly linked to how countries approve and adopt new health technologies. Through its prequalification process, which relies on assessments performed by stringent authorities such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), WHO helps countries by assessing product quality, safety, and efficacy more efficiently. In turn, WHO also has come to rely on technical expertise from the FDA and other national regulators. Weakening this symbiotic relationship risks slowing the global uptake of FDA-approved products, diminishing incentives for US innovators to invest in neglected diseases and pandemic threats, and delaying patient access to safe, effective, and affordable health technologies worldwide.
What’s at stake: With WHO’s role as a global regulatory harmonizer in question, will we see an increasingly fragmented regulatory landscape—slowing approvals, duplicating effort, and delaying access to lifesaving products for patients who need them most?
Function at risk: Setting research priorities for clinical and product development
WHO convenes scientists, funders, and governments to set global research priorities, align investments, and streamline clinical trials—especially during public health emergencies. This coordination is critical to accelerating the development of vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and emerging pathogens. In particular, WHO’s development of target product profiles provides an evidence-based roadmap for product developers, helping ensure that new tools meet public health needs, are fit for use in diverse settings, and can interrupt outbreaks before they escalate. Diminishing WHO’s capacity could slow progress across these areas. Efforts may become fragmented or duplicative, and delays could ripple through the R&D pipeline—postponing the availability of lifesaving innovations. In an interconnected global economy, such delays affect all nations by heightening health risks and disrupting supply chains, and they could ultimately impose economic costs on the United States.
What’s at stake: If WHO’s R&D programs are undermined, how will global research priorities be aligned and by whom? How will we ensure that scarce R&D resources are prioritized and coordinated to target the most urgent health threats?
Function at risk: Disease surveillance and monitoring systems
WHO coordinates some of the world’s most critical disease surveillance networks, including the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System, which informs the development of the flu vaccines used by people around the world, including Americans. Budget cuts, staff reductions, and program relocations could threaten the speed and reliability of outbreak detection, data sharing, and global coordination, making it harder to identify and respond to emerging threats before they spread internationally. Member states that remove themselves from WHO-coordinated surveillance programs put themselves at risk as emerging outbreaks could cross borders and reach countries such as the United States or Argentina before national health authorities have early visibility.
What’s at stake: If WHO's disease surveillance programs are hollowed out by member state withdrawals, to what degree will gaps in data and early warning signals delay vaccine development and leave the world less prepared for the next pandemic?
Amid sweeping changes at WHO and the growing implications of member state withdrawals, vital questions remain around how and whether WHO can preserve its vital role in the R&D ecosystem. Moreover, there remains little clarity on how the United States and WHO will manage this transition, where critical gaps are already forming. We can look back to the COVID-19 pandemic and see that global health R&D moves faster and more effectively when countries align around shared priorities, pool evidence, and coordinate trials—functions WHO is uniquely positioned to lead.
This lack of clarity creates risk: for global health R&D, for outbreak preparedness, and for American health security. WHO will continue its core governance and policy processes in 2026, beginning with its next Executive Board meeting in February. These moments must be used by the global health community to demand greater transparency amid sweeping institutional shifts and to continue pressing for sustained investment in R&D functions that cannot afford erosion. Put simply, if we don’t know what is being scaled back, restructured, or deprioritized, we cannot ensure that the systems that move health innovations from labs to patients remain protected.