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

This article has been updated.

"It’s time for a renovation, to build a new global health architecture fit for the future."

These were the words of World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at the opening of this year's World Health Assembly on 18 May – a day after he declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern, and in the wake of the recent hantavirus cluster.

Every year, the World Health Assembly is tasked with confronting urgent medical crises like these and coordinating a unified international response. But what is the Assembly, and why is it important?

The World Health Assembly is the decision-making body of the 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 currently holds the post, 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.

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

Last year's Assembly saw the adoption of the WHO Pandemic Agreement, a legally binding international instrument to improve global preparedness – and response – to future pandemics. A critical step towards health equity, the proposed Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex to the Agreement is, however, still under negotiation.

Now in its 79th session, this year’s event takes place between 18-23 May under the theme 'Reshaping global health: a shared responsibility'. The purpose in 2026, says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is "not to launch a new initiative, but to bring together the many existing initiatives that have proposed reforms of the global health architecture, in part or in whole".

The Assembly also features an extensive side event programme that provides a platform for health officials, policymakers and researchers to engage in high-level dialogue around a variety of topics. Running this year from 18-21 May, it includes a session on women's leadership in the health sphere and how to create a gender-responsive global healthcare system.

Just 6% of private healthcare investment goes into women's health, according to a report by the World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Group. But bridging the gender health gap will take more than finance and science. The Forum's Women's Health Innovation Radar argues that an innovation ecosystem is required to translate discovery into scalable solutions.

The Forum is collaborating with McKinsey Health Institute on a signature session around women's healthcare delivery at its annual health roundtable, which runs alongside the Assembly, convening business leaders, civil society and the public sector to drive action on global health priorities.

"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 and Healthcare at the Forum.