Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization delivers his statement during the opening of the 77th World Health Assembly at the United Nations in Geneva on 27 May 2024. (Keystone/Salvatore Di Nolfi)

After a year of turmoil, WHO remains a pillar of global health. The World Health Organization just experienced one of the most challenging years in its history, following the US withdrawal and deep donor cuts. Experts say, however, that the UN agency remains central to global health governance.

WHO assistant director general Jeremy Farrar: 'In the age of disinformation, WHO must remain a normative power.' Responsible for health promotion and disease prevention and care at the World Health Organization, the former charity chief takes stock of the state of the UN health agency.

⚖️WITHIN THEIR RIGHTS. While much focus has been on Iran and the regional conflict that began a week ago after joint US-Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic, the UN Human Rights Council will hear this week from other crises that risk being overshadowed.

Independent probes on Ukraine, now in its fifth year at war with Russia, and Syria, where rights groups accuse authorities of abuses including summary executions, will report on the situations there while awaiting the renewal of their mandates.

A report on Venezuela – the first since the US attack and capture of president Nicolás Maduro – will be presented on Thursday. Rights advocates say that hundreds of prisoners remain in detention following the interim government’s approval of a new amnesty law.

🎥RIGHT(S) PAIRING. Geneva’s human rights film festival (FIFDH) will continue to project stories this week reflecting some of the issues discussed by diplomats sitting across the lake at the council.

These will include films about resistance under Iran’s Islamic regime before the latest conflict, rights violations in Venezuela and the impact of artificial intelligence on human rights.

Impact. Today and tomorrow, the festival will bring together filmmakers, human rights organisations and philanthropists to help ensure that storytelling delivers its maximum impact and results in solutions.

‘Yurlu’, a documentary about an Australian Aboriginal community poisoned by a former asbestos mine, which benefitted from last year’s Impact Days, will screen this evening. It will be followed by discussions with the director, a community leader and human rights experts.

⛑️QUO VADIS? A year after UN aid chief Tom Fletcher announced a humanitarian reset amid a funding dry-up, and as the Trump administration breathed menacingly down the sector’s neck, aid workers will still be scrambling for a toolkit as they gather in Geneva this week.

On Wednesday, the Humanitarian Networks and Partnership Weeks, or HNPW, will focus on the reset, with discussions on key topics including anticipatory action, locally-led action, organisational culture and security risk management.

Decisions, decisions. With many aid groups forced to cut down their presence locally, including for preventative data collection purposes or due to government bans as in Gaza, the sector will be trying to figure out how to make tough decisions, including withdrawing from crises.

Last week, Fletcher assured ambassadors in New York that humanitarian efforts have become “leaner and more localised”, according to a story he posted on social media.

The US’s “adapt or die” order to the sector, paired with conditional funding from the world’s former biggest donor under its ‘gag law’ blocking support to abortion care, will nonetheless be weighing ethically on some attendees this week at the CICG conference centre.

– By Paula Dupraz-Dobias