Under the theme “Reshaping global health: a shared responsibility,” the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA) of the World Health Organization (WHO) convened in Geneva from 18 to 23 May 2026. Rarely have technical health work, institutional reform and geopolitical tension intersected so sharply. Ongoing disease outbreaks, an increasingly strained financing environment, the continuing wars in Ukraine, Gaza and the wider Middle East, the first-ever absence of the United States, and Argentina's notification of withdrawal all shaped an unusually demanding assembly.
Alongside the outstanding negotiations on the PABS-annex to the WHO Pandemic Agreement, WHA79 addressed a broad technical agenda: antimicrobial resistance, the international recruitment of health personnel, stroke care, pharma-covigilance, emergency care, teleradiology, precision medicine, radiation protection, and the economics of health for all. A substantial share of the substantive work was accordingly carried out in committee. Meanwhile, plenary and procedural debates made clear that questions of sovereignty, financing, conflict, access to health innovations and pathogen data, and the scope of WHO's health policy mandate now reach deeply into the technical work of the organisation.
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About this series
The ‘Geneva Telegram’ analyses and documents the processes in Geneva's multilateral organisations on current topics. The reports on multilateral issues draw on the expertise of the KAS Geneva team and external authors. The Geneva Telegram is supplemented by the Maps of the Month, which summarise the voting results of UN member states on selected topics.
