EuroWire, GENEVA: The World Health Organization said on April 23 that its annual Results Report showed measurable health gains in 2025 despite funding cuts across the agency and the broader global health sector. Compared with a 2018 baseline, WHO said 567 million more people were covered by essential health services without catastrophic health spending, 698 million more were better protected from health emergencies, and 1.75 billion more were living healthier lives.
The report, released ahead of the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly in May, marked the final assessment under the agency’s 2019 to 2025 strategy and showed improvement across all three of its “Triple Billion” targets. WHO said the totals rose from 2024 by 136 million for health service coverage, 61 million for emergency protection and 300 million for healthier lives, reflecting gains recorded at country, regional and global levels.
The World Health Organization also said the results were uneven and left the world off track to meet health-related Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. About half of the output indicators tied to the performance of the WHO Secretariat were not achieved, particularly in emergency-prone and resource-constrained settings. The agency said financial pressure and its realignment process reduced staffing capacity for delivery, limited technical support and slowed programme implementation.
WHO health gains reveal uneven progress
Progress toward universal health coverage was driven by wider coverage for communicable disease services, including HIV and tuberculosis care, improved sanitation and an expanding health workforce, the report said. Gains in protection from health emergencies were linked to pandemic preparedness, early warning systems and response capacity. Progress in healthier lives was driven by wider access to clean household energy, water, sanitation and hygiene, along with declines in air pollution, tobacco use and alcohol consumption.
The report also listed specific achievements in 2025 that WHO said reflected its technical and convening role. It cited expanded antimicrobial resistance surveillance through the GLASS network, stronger emergency mental health and psychosocial support systems that lifted country coverage from 28% to 48%, and broader HPV vaccination with simplified single-dose schedules that raised global coverage from 17% in 2019 to 31% in 2024. WHO also said it responded to 66 emergencies across 88 countries.
Financing pressures deepen
The release came against a wider financing squeeze that has weighed on national health systems and on WHO itself. In November 2025, WHO said external health aid was projected to fall by 30% to 40% from 2023 levels, and survey data from 108 low- and middle-income countries showed funding cuts had reduced critical services by up to 70% in some countries. More than 50 countries also reported job losses among health and care workers, the organization said.
In its 2025 results report, WHO said a large share of its funding remained highly earmarked for specific themes, limiting its ability to allocate resources strategically across priorities. The agency said the findings would be presented by Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the World Health Assembly from May 18 to May 23, 2026, as member states review progress and persistent gaps in areas including diabetes management, measles surveillance, disease detection, emergency response and financial protection.