WHO Archives
Archives
The WHO Archives conserve more than 3 linear kilometres of documents which have acquired administrative, legal, historic and cultural value. They are WHO's institutional memory and trace the Organization's history.
The WHO Archives preserves the historically valuable documents produced by WHO and also by organizations involved in international health prior to the foundation of WHO. The Archives holds mainly textual paper documents, such as correspondence, reports and certificates, as well as numerous photographs and some sound recordings. For reasons of confidentiality, most documents may be consulted only after a 20-year period.
Records
The WHO Records unit mainly handles active records, such as documents used by the different units of WHO for their current work. These include correspondence, contracts and statistical reports. For this reason, they are still covered by the 20-year confidentiality rule. Very few of these records are available to outside researchers.
WHO records comprise correspondence, contracts, minutes, studies, travel and mission reports, etc.
Archives of the Regional Offices
The WHO Regional Offices also keep archives on their work. If required, the Records and Archives service at Headquarters will get in touch with them.
From January 2027, due to several ongoing projects impacting the WHO Archives, particularly ongoing renovation works at the WHO Headquarters campus, some of our collections will be temporarily withdrawn from consultation and physical access will be closed until further notice.
Our reference services remain available. Archival collections that have already been digitized remain accessible. We recommend that you contact our service by filling in the request form below to check the availability of the series you wish to consult and explore the options available.
Distinction between library collections, archives and current records
The WHO Archives preserves the historically valuable documents produced by WHO units and also by organizations involved in international health prior to the foundation of WHO.
The WHO Records unit mainly handles active records, i.e. documents used by the different units of WHO for their current work. They comprise correspondence, contracts and statistical reports.
The WHO Library holds and stores all the published information produced by WHO, including proceedings of the World Health Assembly and Executive Board, monographs, periodicals, unpublished technical documents, press releases, fact sheets and administrative documents of the governing bodies.
