Earlier this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced it would be deploying experts to prevent sexual abuse cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Following the release of an independent report last month, it was revealed that at least 20 WHO employees had taken part in the sexual exploitation and abuse of women in the DRC during the country’s Ebola epidemic from 2018 to 2020.

According to Reuters, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus laid out a plan on the prevention of sexual exploitation to over 194 U.N. member-states in a closed-door meeting earlier this month. The ten “high-risk” countries in which this plan will be implemented include Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Venezuela, and Yemen.

While still in its final stages, the plan includes immediate, short-term actions involving a “series of internal reviews and audits” to create a “wholesale reform of WHO structures and culture,” the WHO said in their initial statement. The organization shared that an initial $7.6 million has been set aside to “immediately strengthen its capacity to prevent, detect and respond to (sexual exploitation and abuse) in ten countries with the highest risk profile.” The WHO also has plans for a long-term program that would cost nearly double that annually.

While this seems a valiant effort by the WHO to combat sexual abuse amongst their ranks, many questions remain. How did this happen for so long? How is an organization that is meant to aid and protect people be capable of this? Why were there so many WHO employees involved? Is this happening amongst other regions of the world in which WHO employees are working? Knowing that there is a minimum of 20 WHO employees involved in the DRC alone, it begs the question— Should sexual abuse prevention training and internal reviews become the global standard?

Many Western donors including the U.S. and the EU demanded that the WHO launches deeper internal investigations and provide an explanation for how these incidents were able to happen. In a statement to the meeting, the European Union shared that it “expect[s] WHO’s senior management to take every possible action to consistently address the systemic issues and to follow up on each individual case, including possible judicial actions.”

According to the DW, four WHO employees have lost their jobs due to this scandal, and two have been placed on administrative leave. Additionally, one expert is already said to have gone to Congo.