GENEVA (AN) — Deep funding cuts are forcing a potential U.N. consolidation, as the world’s most vulnerable refugees lost critical support and global health financing faces its biggest modern challenge.
"Reduced funding is hitting hardest these refugees and their host communities, which are already stretched to the limits," Elizabeth Tan, the U.N. refugee agency's director of international protection, said on Friday.
The agency, known as UNHCR, and others, such as the World Food Program, UNICE and OCHA, plan cuts affecting thousands of jobs and millions of people worldwide.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the U.N. health agency, said a day earlier "we are living through the greatest disruption to global health financing in memory" as the U.S. and other countries scale back aid.
"For years we have said global health financing needs to be changed and emphasized the importance of self-reliance and domestic financing," he told a media briefing. "Instead of an orderly decline, or an orderly withdrawal, the abrupt cuts to overseas development aid and a challenging economic and trade environment are sewing chaos in public health."
The U.N. migration agency, IOM, previously said it was forced to scale back or end projects affecting over 6,000 staff members worldwide and cut 20% or 250 staff from its Geneva headquarters.
With the abrupt loss of billions of dollars in financial support, the United Nations is weighing a potential system-wide downsizing and merging of agencies, according to news reports.
U.N. agency heads were told to submit proposals by May 15 for paring back spending including staff relocations from New York and Geneva to less-expensive cities, The New York Times reported, citing an April 25 memo. "Your objective is to identify as many functions as possible that could be relocated to existing lower-cost locations or otherwise reduced or abolished if they are duplicative or no longer viable," it instructed.
Much of the turmoil stems from U.S. President Donald Trump's steep cuts in U.S. foreign aid and dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which spent $21.7 billion last year. Even before that, however, the U.S., as the U.N.'s largest donor, was $1.5 billion in arrears for mandatory payments and $1.2 billion in arrears for peacekeeping.
Another six-page U.N. confidential memo calls for the possible merger of major departments and shift in resources across the globe, Reuters reported. It contains a list of "suggestions" such as rolling dozens of U.N. agencies into four main departments: peace and security, humanitarian affairs, sustainable development, and human rights.
Hundreds of U.N. staff held a Labor Day rally in Geneva on Thursday to protest the deep funding cuts, especially by the U.S., that have led to thousands of layoffs and the loss of critical life-saving programs around the world.
Bearing signs such as "U.N. staff are not a commodity" and "Protect the protectors," they assembled by the Broken Chair monumental wood sculpture outside the U.N.'s European headquarters, the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
Though salaries vary by position and location, some U.N. staff face serious hardships and and risks living in areas torn by conflict, violence or war.
"Our colleagues have worked in some of the most dangerous, difficult and isolated locations in the world," said Ian Richards, head of the staff union for the U.N. Office at Geneva.
"They couldn't choose when or where they moved. They have sacrificed their personal and family lives, and in some cases paid the ultimate price, to help those in need," he said. "Many are being let go without any social or financial support from their employers."
