The Associated Press reports the World Health Organization spends about $200 million a year on travel, more than its combined spending on AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis and malaria.
The AP story says while the United Nation’s leading health agency continues to issue urgent pleas for money, the agency has failed to get its own spending under control.
“Despite introducing new rules to try to curb its expansive travel budget, senior officials have complained internally that U.N. staffers are breaking the rules by booking perks like business class airplane tickets and rooms in five-star hotels,” the AP reported.
The news agency gained access to internal documents that showed how the WHO struggles to curtail travel costs even though it has strict rules in place. “We, as an organization, sometimes function as if the rules are there to be broken and that exceptions are the rule rather than the norm,” said Ian Smith, executive director in the office of WHO director-general Dr. Margaret Chan.
Travel costs spiked to $234 million during the Ebola disaster in West Africa and experts say more help was needed from the WHO during the time. However, “Some question whether the agency couldn’t have shaved costs so that more funds went to West Africa, where three stricken countries couldn’t even afford basics like protective boots, gloves and soap.”
Chan’s travel cost the agency $370,000 that year, including first class airfare. The WHO says its travel policy changed earlier this year to eliminate luxury flights by top officials.
Taxpayers are footing the bill. WHO’s approximately $2 billion annual budget comes from 194 member countries and the United States is the largest contributor.
The WHO appears to far exceed the travel costs of similar aid agencies. “Other international aid agencies, including Doctors Without Borders, explicitly forbid their staff from traveling business class—even having the charity’s president fly in economy,” the AP reported. “With a staff of about 37,000 aid workers versus WHO’s 7,000 staffers, Doctors Without Borders spends about $43 million on travel a year.”
The expenses add up. According to the AP, the WHO has paid out a whopping $803 million for travel since 2013, and an internal audit obtained by the news agency found that five out of seven departments at WHO’s Geneva headquarters fail miserably at complying with their own travel rules.
Meanwhile, last month the WHO issued an urgent pleas for $100 million for Somalia and $126 million for Yemen. There is no doubt that those nations, which have been ravaged by a civil war and drought, are in desperate need of more help. The WHO can provide even more relief by making sure that more of its budget is used to help people in need rather than pad its travel budget.