In 1998 WHO and Christoffel-Blindenmission (CBM) jointly hosted a workshop on Hearing Aids Services – Needs and

The first edition of the WHO Guidelines for Hearing Aids and Services for Developing Countries was launched at WHO-HQ on 11 July 2001. The second edition (English & Chinese versions) was launched in 2004.

In 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, WHO and CBM jointly hosted workshops to gather key stakeholders (governments, implementing NGOs, manufacturers, users, donors, experts) to discuss how best to provide an adequate supply of affordable hearing aids and services in developing countries.

WWHearing - World Wide Hearing Care for Developing Countries, was set up at the 2003 Workshop as an independent collaborative partnership for this purpose.

In August 2006, WWHearing became a charitable association in Switzerland; in October 2006, WWHearing signed a Project Collaboration Agreement with the World Health Organization (WHO) in order to work together to encourage and enable provision of affordable hearing aids and services on a massive scale, prioritized to developing countries and underserved communities (see Documents for text of agreement).

In November 2006, at a joint WHO-WWHearing Workshop in Geneva, members of WWHearing voted for a new executive committee (see Executive Committee for a list of members).