UN could cut thousands of jobs under reform plans: internal memo

The cash-strapped United Nations could slash 20% of jobs — or thousands of positions — in its executive arm under ongoing reform plans, according to an internal memo seen Thursday by AFP.

"The Secretary-General has set an ambitious target, to achieve a meaningful reduction (between 15% and 20%) of the regular budget for 2026, including a reduction of 20% of posts, for the UN Secretariat," UN controller Chandramouli Ramanathan wrote in a message this week to dozens of department heads.

The UN's budget for 2025 totals $3.7 billion.

The Secretariat, one of the main bodies tasked with carrying out the decisions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, employed about 35,000 people as of late 2023 — most of them in New York, but also in Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi.

The UN 80 reform initiative launched by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in March aims to streamline operations at the world body amid budgetary constraints.

Guterres recently warned of "painful" changes ahead, including staff reductions, and did obliquely raise the specter of a 20% cut in staffing.

The memo seen by AFP, dated May 27, asks all department heads to prepare lists of posts to eliminate by June 13, focusing on "redundant, overlapping or non-critical functions."

"I count on your cooperation for this collective effort whose aggressive timelines are recognized," Ramanathan wrote.

If approved by the General Assembly, which must adopt the 2026 budget, the staff cuts would go into effect on January 1, 2026 for those posts already vacant, and later for those occupied, in accordance with UN regulations.

The memo says that agencies like the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and UN Women — which are partially funded out of the UN´s regular budget — would receive separate instructions.

The UN has for years faced a chronic liquidity crisis, because some member states do not pay their expected contributions in full, and others do not pay on time.

The United States, the top contributor to the UN ordinary budget at 22% of the total, was $1.5 billion behind in its payments by the end of January, a UN spokesman said.

And in 2024, China, the number two contributor at 20%, only paid its contribution in late December.

Beyond the liquidity woes, some fear that funding will drop under US President Donald Trump. Several UN agencies have already been hit hard by deep cuts in US foreign aid.