The United Nations (UN) Secretary General has warned member states that the financial crisis facing the UN was deepening, threatening programme delivery and risking financial collapse.
In a letter to all country missions last week, Antonio Guterres warned that the current trajectory was untenable and left the organisation exposed to structural financial risk and urged member states to honour their financial obligations in full and on time.
Guterres told member states that unless collections drastically improved, they would be unable to execute the $3.45 billion programme budget approved by member states in December 2026.
Guterres writes that the UN ended 2025 with a record of over $1.56 billion in outstanding fees, more than double the previous year that has heightened its vulnerability to shortages and delays in collections in the year ahead.
The UN’s largest financial contributor the United States reduced its voluntary funding to several UN agencies and declined to make mandatory payments to the organisation’s regular and peacekeeping budgets last year.
–SABC–
