As the last Program Budget of the SP20–25, the Program Budget 2024–2025 (PB24–25) comes at a pivotal moment. While actions are already being implemented to help the Region recover from recent events, the 2024–2025 biennium will be critical for the Organization’s efforts to continue the recovery, accelerate actions, and undertake innovations to advance the health agenda and reduce health inequities in the Region and in countries. Targeted actions should be designed with an understanding of what is working well and what is not working or could be done differently, taking into consideration the regional and global context and the lessons learned from the pandemic.
During the biennium, PASB will work to enable sustainable post-pandemic recovery in countries across the Region and stem the backsliding in service coverage rates and health outcomes that resulted from the pandemic. At the same time, the Bureau will strive to advance the health agenda and work with countries and territories to strengthen their capacity to respond to future threats. The emphasis will be on completing implementation of the SP20–25 while fulfilling other regional and global mandates and priorities, with special attention to closing gaps and responding to the needs of populations living in situations of vulnerability. The Organization will continue transitioning its technical cooperation for COVID-19 from an emergency response modality to sustained core technical cooperation, incorporating the many lessons learned from 2020 to 2023.
This Program Budget forms a results-based “contract” between PASB and Member States, with each undertaking to perform the respective actions necessary to achieve the health outcomes and outputs contained in the document. Through PB24–25, PAHO will continue to demonstrate accountability for results, emphasizing the country-level impact. The approval, implementation, and reporting of this Program Budget are the main means of accountability for programmatic work and the financial resources entrusted to PASB for this purpose.
The total PAHO proposed budget for the 2024–2025 biennium is US $820 million. Of this amount, $700 million is for base programs and $120 million is for special programs (including emergencies, as a placeholder budget). This proposal represents a net decrease of 7% of the overall budget compared to 2022–2023, resulting from a 3% increase in base programs and a 40% decrease in the special programs segment. In line with PASB’s commitment to strengthen its country focus for PB24–25, 81% ($16.7 million) of the overall budget increase of $20.5 million has been allocated to the country level. The proposed budget envelope, which responds to new and emerging needs, also considers financing prospects during the post-pandemic recovery phase and the proposed WHO budget allocation to the Americas for 2024–2025.