The World Health Organization (WHO) launched its first-ever Investment Round on Sunday as part of a broader plan to transform the way the Organization is funded heading into an era of climate change, mass migration, pandemic threats, an aging world population, and turbulent geopolitics. The launch, on the eve of the Seventy-Seventh World Health Assembly, marks the start of a year-long series of engagements and events, co-hosted by countries, where Member States and other donors will be invited to contribute funds to WHO's strategy for 2025 through 2028 and show high-level political commitment to WHO and global health. The Investment Round will culminate in November with a major pledging event to be hosted by Brazil around the G20 Leaders' Summit.

"It's about ensuring WHO is fully funded and improving the quality of the funding we receive. Much of the funding we receive is unpredictable, reactive, and tightly defined," Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, opening the high-level event on the eve of the Health Assembly. "The Investment Round aims to change that, by generating funding that is more flexible, predictable, and resilient.

" WHO's third investment case, to be launched at the Health Assembly on Tuesday 28 May, estimates that full funding of the strategy, the Fourteenth General Programme of Work (GPW 14), will contribute to saving 40 million lives from 2025-2028. During Sunday's high-level event, the Government of Brazil announced that as part of its G20 .