What is the World Health Assembly and why is it important?

This article has been updated.

How’s your health? It’s a common enough question but one that gets more complicated when applied to the world as a whole.

Over the past five years, society has experienced a wave of adverse events, including geopolitical conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic and the impacts of the climate and energy crises, which have engulfed global health and healthcare.

Every year, the World Health Assembly is tasked with tackling global healthcare challenges like these and deciding how best to overcome them. But what is the Assembly, and why is it important?

The World Health Assembly is the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN) agency dedicated to promoting the global population’s health and access to the highest levels of healthcare provision.

Delegates from WHO member states come together at an annual assembly held at the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, to focus on a specific healthcare agenda created by the organization’s Executive Board.

The Executive Board comprises 34 technically qualified members, each elected for a three-year term. They meet every year in January to agree on the agenda and any resolutions that will be put before the World Health Assembly for consideration.

Delegates at the annual World Health Assembly discuss the Executive Board’s policy agenda for the coming year and decide which health goals and strategies will guide the WHO’s public health work.

Other functions include voting to appoint the organization’s Director-General to serve a five-year term. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus holds the post currently, having been re-elected in 2022 to serve a second term as head of the world’s leading public health agency.

The Assembly also oversees financial policies, approves the proposed budget programme to fund future WHO operations, monitors progress in implementing work programmes and devises strategies to address gaps.

Now in its 78th session, this year’s event takes place between 19 and 27 May, under the theme 'One World for Health'.

Since its inauguration, the Assembly has presided over WHO policies that have helped eradicate deadly diseases like smallpox and the poliovirus, and helped foster international collaborations to develop and distribute vaccines for diseases like malaria and COVID-19.

This year's Assembly will include a High-level pledging event on 'Sustainable financing of WHO for impact in the new global health landscape'. It will convene Member States, donors and key partners to raise funding as part of the WHO Investment Round to deliver on the 14th General Programme of Work.

The Assembly also features an extensive side event programme, this year running from 19-24 May, which includes a session on the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing 2021-2030, a pressing health concern when the proportion of the global population over the age of 60 is expected to double by 2050, from 2015 levels.

The WHO has tracked life expectancy trends since 2000, with data showing a steady gain globally, until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With increasing ageing populations come new healthcare challenges. The World Economic Forum’s Closing Health Gaps: A Guide to Impactful Place-Based Change white paper examines the discrepancies in life expectancy "depending on the neighbourhood one calls home" and suggests community-based approaches to healthcare to address the issue.

The Assembly provides a platform for health experts to debate and develop global policy around this and other pressing healthcare issues.

"Every year at the World Health Assembly, healthcare leaders from around the globe come together to discuss global health challenges and agree on how best to overcome them to ensure everyone, everywhere, can attain the highest level of health, said Dr Shyam Bishen, Head, Centre for Health & Healthcare at the World Economic Forum.

"To this end, the Centre is looking forward to participating in key World Health Assembly meetings and hosting events on pandemic preparedness and health system transformation," he added.

"We are working with WHO and other key stakeholders to ensure health systems around the world are better prepared to respond to future crises."