UN Adopts $3.45B Budget as Cash Crisis Worsens

By: ATN News Team

UNHQ, New York: The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday approved a $3.45 billion program budget for 2026, endorsing deep spending and staffing cuts amid worsening cash-flow pressures that continue to threaten the organization’s operations.

The budget, adopted at the close of the General Assembly’s 80th session following months of tense negotiations in the Fifth Committee, reflects a 15 percent reduction in overall financial resources and a nearly 19 percent cut in staff posts, largely in line with proposals from Secretary-General António Guterres.

Delegates acknowledged that the reductions are part of the broader UN80 reform initiative, aimed at streamlining mandates, eliminating duplication and improving efficiency across the UN system. But many also warned that the cuts come as the organization faces its most severe liquidity crisis in years.

As of Dec. 1, 2025, the UN was owed $1.586 billion in unpaid contributions, including $709 million from 2024 and $877 million for 2025, according to figures presented to the committee. Under current financial rules, unspent funds — often the result of late payments — must be returned to member states as credits, preventing the UN from retaining reserves to cushion future shortfalls. Proposals to temporarily suspend those credit returns failed to gain consensus.

“This is a budget adopted under extraordinary circumstances,” Fifth Committee officials said, noting that negotiations stretched from early October through Dec. 30 and involved more than 20 plenary meetings and extensive informal consultations.

The budget’s adoption followed the rejection of two oral amendments introduced by Russian Federation and Cuba, which sought to block funding for certain Human Rights Council mandates. Both proposals were defeated by wide margins in recorded votes, underscoring deep divisions over country-specific human rights investigations.

Despite political friction, the Assembly adopted 16 draft resolutions and one draft decision without a vote, formally clearing the 2026 spending package.

U.S. officials praised the outcome, describing it as a long-overdue correction to what they characterized as institutional excess. Washington said the agreement would reduce the U.S. assessment by roughly $570 million compared with the previous year and called on the Secretariat to pursue even more ambitious structural reforms in future budgets.

Other delegations struck a more cautious tone. The European Union welcomed improvements in budget discipline and transparency but urged all member states to pay assessed contributions “in full, on time and without conditions.” African Group representatives emphasized the need to protect development funding and support mandates tied to the Sustainable Development Goals.

UN officials warned that the human cost of the budget cuts will be immediate. Nearly 2,900 posts are scheduled to be abolished while more than 1,000 staff separations have already been finalized, and the organization must still ensure salaries and separation payments for affected staff in early 2026.

“There is no victory lap here,” one senior budget official said. “This is damage control under pressure.”

As delegates departed for the New Year, many privately acknowledged that while the budget keeps the lights on for now, it does little to resolve the structural funding weaknesses that continue to haunt the world body.

The message, as one diplomat put it bluntly: the UN has passed a budget — not solved its financial problem.