The United Nations building in New York. Picture: UN
Cost-cutting measures will limit the ability of the United Nations to do its job next year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says.
He made the comment recently while asking the UN General Assembly in New York to fund a US$3.6 billion budget for next year.
“In a context of major global shocks, the United Nations is more needed than ever …” he says.
“To fully implement our mandates, we will require a total of US$3.6 billion in 2025.”
While the UN continues to cut costs amid falling cash reserves, he says, further cuts to support departments risk jeopardising policy, operational, or communication support.
And he wants member states to pay what they owe the UN.
“I again urge member states to meet their financial obligations in full and on time,” he says.
According to a UN list, by the end October 2024, 144 member states had paid up in full; the US and China were not on that list.
“Ultimately, the effectiveness of program delivery and use of financial resources in 2025 will depend on the availability of cash,” Guterres says.
“The organisation started this year with only about US$67 million in cash compared to US$700 million last year …” he says.
This shortfall was compounded by the return of US$114 million in credits to member states “which meant that we would collect less than the budget approved for 2024 even if all member states pay in full in 2024”.
“The depletion of regular budget liquidity reserves at the end of 2023 therefore necessitated imposing stringent cash-conservation measures from the very beginning of 2024,” Guterres says.
The secretary-general says that unless the UN cash reserves are fully replenished at the end of this year, cost-cutting will again hamper operations in 2025; he also asked for a temporary suspension on the return of credits for 2023 against the 2025 assessment.
Guterres points out that the increasing need for the UN comes as it sets itself new performance targets of a 10 per cent increase or more.
He says the proposed budget will include US$711 million to continue with 36 political missions, down by US$31 million after it ended a field mission in Sudan and investigations into Islamic State (Da’esh) atrocities in committed in Iraq.
He outlined five points of their 2025 budget proposal:
- an extra US$4.5 million for sustainable development;
- US$28.8m to be reallocated on human rights work including an extra US$8.3 million to fund the search for missing persons in Syria and US$8 million for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights;
- an extra US$3.5m for their work in Gaza including nearly $2.5 million for UNRWA;
- an extra US$3.5m for disarmament (including for the Middle East peace process) and a proposed US$50m grant for peacebuilding and recovery; and
- strengthening their investigative and ethics capabilities with an extra US$2m to create 13 temporary positions in their ethics office and Office of Internal Oversight Services.
