The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, was analyzing the budget of the organization he heads and concluded that a reduction of 2681 jobs, or 18.8%, will be necessary, compared to the staffing table approved for 2025. “Although the proposed reductions are substantial, they were carefully calibrated to preserve the balance between the three pillars of the organization: peace and security, sustainable development and human rights”, assured Guterres, at a time when the UN is going through a serious liquidity crisis.
The cuts are part of the UN80 Initiative, a project announced by Guterres that aims at structural changes in the organization itself, such as the merger of units, elimination of functional and structural duplications, and cuts in functions that are performed in other parts of the system, including Peace Missions.
Exempt from cuts was the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), with Guterres justifying that any reductions could have “drastic consequences on the backbone of the entire humanitarian response to Gaza”.
“The Development Account and the defense of Africa’s development were also exempt from cuts that would inevitably have a direct impact on our support to Member States, hindering efforts towards the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063”, argued Guterres.
For special political missions, the revised budget amounts to 543.6 million dollars (467.6 million euros), a reduction of 96.3 million dollars (82.8 million euros) or 15% compared to the budget initially proposed for 2026, and a reduction of 21.6% compared to this year.
According to the UN leader, these adjustments reflect calls for a “more effective, agile and resilient” international organization secretariat and contain proposals to “align resources with organizational priorities, modernize internal operations and reflect a pragmatic response to the constantly evolving fiscal context”.
However, reductions of this magnitude “will inevitably have programmatic and operational impacts on all entities and will lead to adjustments in the way the secretariat carries out the activities assigned to it”, warned the former Portuguese prime minister.
“These measures constitute substantial budget reductions that affect real people, families and futures, and we must never lose sight of this human dimension,” he added.
The proposals also include the creation of administrative centers in New York and Bangkok (Thailand), the unification of payroll processing into a global team distributed between New York, Entebbe (Uganda) and Nairobi (Kenya), and the transfer of functions from the most expensive headquarters — such as New York and Geneva — to lower-cost locations.
Since 2017, the UN secretariat has saved 126 million dollars (108.4 million euros) by ending commercial lease contracts in New York, Guterres further specified. Additionally, the UN plans to vacate two rented buildings in New York by 2027, generating savings of millions of dollars annually from 2028 onwards.
The UN was severely affected by funding cuts from its largest donor, the United States, after Donald Trump took office as President in January this year.
Despite the UN’s workload increasing from year to year, resources are decreasing in all sectors, contributing to the fact that not all Member States pay their annual obligations in full and many also do not pay on time.
Regarding the payment of annual obligations, Guterres criticized the “unacceptable volume of delays”, stressing that the UN ended 2024 with a debt of 760 million dollars (653.8 million euros), of which 709 million dollars (610 million euros) are still outstanding.
Furthermore, Guterres pointed out that the UN also did not receive 877 million dollars (754.2 million euros) relating to contributions from 2025. Therefore, the debt is currently more than 1.3 billion euros.
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