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The UN plans to bring reforms that would transform the 80 -year -old body because it is preparing for even deeper funding cuts from the Trump administration.
An internal examination commissioned in March by António Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, recommends merging the major departments to rationalize operations and move the staff of high -cost locations such as New York and Geneva.
If they were implemented, the reforms would be the deepest overhaul of the UN for decades, consolidating dozens of agencies and programs in a handful of global departments. They would allow Guterres to assert that the UN is willing to make major changes before the financing of talks with the United States, its greatest donor.
A proposal is to combine the World Food Program (WFP), the Palestinian rescue agency UNRWA and the body of humanitarian affairs OCHA in a single organization, according to a memo seen by the Financial Times.
The memo also suggested that the UN climate change arm is integrated into the environmental program. He reflected if the COP Climate Change Summit, which produced the historic agreement of Paris made tens of thousands of people each year, “should be interrupted” in its current form.
Elsewhere, refugee and migration agencies could be merged, as are UN women and the United Nations population, which provides reproductive health services.
The reforms would allow Guterres “to go to meetings and to say -” Look, the UN is proactive and already creates efficiency gains “, said a person familiar with the discussions around the exam, which is called one80. “What could be better – for the UN, bring these changes now or be forced to make them when money is it?”
The UN declared in a declaration to the FT that the memo “is the preliminary result of an exercise to generate ideas and thoughts of senior officials on how to realize the vision of the general” to make the UN “more efficient and effective”. The document was one of the three “workflows” he pursues, according to the press release.
The six -page memo – which was reported for the first time by Reuters – frankly recognizes a fundamental criticism of the United Nations: that it is swollen by the ineffectures of the programs and agencies that are overlapping, and by an expatriate workforce costly often far from the regions they serve.
“The progressive proliferation of agencies, funds and programs has led to a fragmented development system, with overlapping mandates, an ineffective use of resources and an incoherent service of services,” said the memo.
The changes would have reached serious Reductions of the UN already implemented due to foreign help in the White House, including more than 80% of the USAID budget.
PAM, which received about half of its 2024 United States budget, could lose almost a third of its staff. UNICEF is preparing for a budgetary decrease of 20%, according to internal memos. OCHA has already dismissed 2,600 employees worldwide.
Financial pain could go deeper very quickly. The White House management and budget office has suggested that the United States has reduced its full support for the United Nations and other international organizations, while halving its contributions for other humanitarian assistance.
These cuts should be approved by the congress as part of the overall American federal budget, but suggestions are an official warning to the UN and others that their biggest donor seeks to reshape their relationship.
On the ground, there was a sharp drop in aid for some of the most necessary, especially at WFP.
It was forced to reduce the daily rations it provides to millions of people in Sudan by 30%, while Rohingyas refugees in Bangladesh received less than half of their good monthly food – around $ 6 per month, against $ 12.50 before.
Additional report by Attract Mooney in London
