The WHO goal and six objectives (GPW 14, 2025-2028) for VCE Health and Human Development Unit 4 AoS 2

What this dot point is asking

The 2025 study design key knowledge is "goal and objectives of the WHO". The key skills are to "explain the goal and objectives of the WHO" and "analyse how the WHO goal and objectives are reflected in different scenarios".

This is a changed dot point. The previous study design used the WHO's "strategic priorities" from GPW 13 (the "triple billion" targets), and many textbooks and older practice exams still use that language. VCAA published a separate advice document, "2025 VCE Health and Human Development: World Health Organization (WHO) Goal and Objectives (formerly 'priorities') 2025-2028", which sets the scope, and the VCAA FAQ (February 2026) confirms students are assessed against GPW 14. The advice also notes the revised study "removed the reference to the 'work of the WHO'"; the scope is narrowed to the goal and objectives.

The first exam under the new design showed why precision matters: on 2025 Question 5a, 53 per cent of students scored zero, many because they wrote the components of the goal as if they were objectives.

The WHO in one paragraph

The World Health Organization is the United Nations' specialised agency for health, founded in 1948, with almost every country in the world as a member. It provides leadership on global health, sets norms and standards (such as guidelines and the Model List of Essential Medicines), coordinates responses to international health threats, provides technical support to countries and monitors global health trends. It works through governments, other UN agencies and partners rather than mainly delivering services itself. You need this context to explain how an objective "is reflected" in a scenario, but the marks are for the goal and objectives.

GPW 14: the goal

GPW 14 was approved by the World Health Assembly in May 2024 and runs from 2025 to 2028. It replaced GPW 13 a year early, in a bid to get the health-related Sustainable Development Goals back on track and prepare health systems for challenges such as climate change, ageing and changing geopolitics (VCAA advice, 2025).

Overarching goal: to promote, provide and protect health and well-being for all people, everywhere.

The goal has three components, each with a target for 2028 (as set out in VCAA's advice):

GPW 14: the six objectives

The six objectives underpin the goal. Learn the key terms of each; the 2025 report said students did not need exact wording but did need the key terms (for example "health emergencies", "primary health care", "all hazards", "financial protection", "health determinants").

The 2025 examiners' report listed "address health determinants and the main causes of ill health" among accepted objectives, a close paraphrase of objective 2.

Applying the objectives to scenarios

The key skill is to "analyse how the WHO goal and objectives are reflected in different scenarios". Use this three-step method:

1. Name the objective using its key terms.
2. Point to evidence in the stimulus that matches those key terms, and quote it.
3. Explain the health outcome: what changes, for whom, with a direction (for example reduced transmission, decreased mortality).

More scenario matches

• WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and MPOWER measures (monitoring use, protecting people from smoke, offering help to quit, warning about dangers, enforcing advertising bans, raising taxes): objective 2, address health determinants and root causes in policies across sectors.
• Supporting countries to remove user fees for maternal and child health services: objective 4, improve coverage and financial protection to address inequity and gender inequalities.
• Training midwives and stocking essential medicines in rural health posts: objective 3, advance primary health care and health system capacity for universal health coverage.
• A regional plan to prepare hospitals for future pandemics and extreme heat: objectives 5 and 1.
• Deploying emergency medical teams and supplies after an earthquake: objective 6.

Linking the WHO to the SDGs

GPW 14 was designed to accelerate progress on SDG 3 ("Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages") and related goals. Universal health coverage and financial protection are SDG target 3.8; health emergencies connect to target 3.d; determinants such as water, sanitation, education and gender equality connect SDG 3 to SDGs 4, 5 and 6 (see SDG interconnections). The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026 found only about 36 per cent of assessable SDG targets on track or making moderate progress, and that official development assistance fell by a record 23 per cent in 2025, which is part of why the WHO's coordinating role matters.

Evaluating the WHO (useful for extended responses)

• Strengths: near-universal membership, authority to set global standards, technical expertise, and the ability to coordinate cross-border responses to outbreaks.
• Limitations: it depends on member-state funding and cooperation and cannot compel governments to act; its impact depends on national capacity and political will.

Keep evaluation brief unless the question asks for it; the study design's focus is the goal and objectives and how they appear in scenarios.