Sunday Times 2
Under assault, UN is struggling for survival
View(s):By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The late Senator Jesse Helms, a full-time chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a part-time UN basher (1995-2001), once remarked, “Providing funds to the UN was like pouring money into a rat hole.”
“I disagree with the premises upon which the United Nations is built and with the illusion that it propagates,” Helms said in a letter to the World Federalist Association.
“It would be one thing if the United Nations were just an international sideshow, but it plays a greater role. It is a vast engine for the promotion of socialism, and to promote this purpose, the US provides a quarter of its budget,” he said.
Fast forward to 2025.
The US House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York, the incoming US Ambassador to the UN, was quoted as saying, “In the UN, Americans see a corrupt, defunct, and paralysed institution more beholden to bureaucracy, process, and diplomatic niceties than the founding principles of peace, security, and international cooperation laid out in its charter.”
So, what else is new?
Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who acts as a virtual prime minister to President Trump, has called on the US to exit the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the United Nations.
“I agree,” he wrote last week in response to a post from a right-wing political commentator saying “it’s time” for the U.S. to leave NATO and the UN.”
President Donald Trump addresses the General Assembly’s 75th sessions back in September 2020. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas
Described as Trump’s most powerful advisor, Musk has been ruthlessly cracking down on the US federal bureaucracy as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The threat against the UN has been reinforced following a move by several Republican lawmakers who have submitted a bill on the US exit from the UN, claiming that the organisation does not align with the Trump administration’s “America First” agenda.
Kul Chandra Gautam, a former UN assistant secretary-general and onetime deputy executive director of UNICEF, told IPS if proof of the Trump/Musk administration’s mean and malevolent intentions were needed, this is it.
As part of its cost-cutting, the US is terminating funding, among others, for polio, HIV/AIDS, malaria and nutrition programmes around the world.
Most of these projects, he pointed out, were run by highly respected INGOs, UN agencies, governments and private contractors with a track record of success and efficiency. And many of them had received a waiver from the freeze because the State Department previously identified their work as essential and lifesaving.
“Here is a case of throwing the baby with the bathwater—millions of children and women cruelly condemned to become sick, malnourished, and dying to satisfy the ego and hubris of the world’s richest man and a would-be Master of the Universe,” he added.
The US has already decided to withdraw from the Human Rights Council and the World Health Organisation (WHO), while two other UN agencies are under “renewed scrutiny”—the” UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Briefing reporters last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern over the impending crisis.
“I want to start by expressing my deep concern about information received in the last 48 hours by UN agencies—as well as many humanitarian and development NGOs—regarding severe cuts in funding by the United States. These cuts impact a wide range of critical programmes.”
From lifesaving humanitarian aid to support for vulnerable communities recovering from war or natural disaster. From development to the fight against terrorism and illicit drug trafficking.
“The consequences will be especially devastating for vulnerable people around the world,” he warned.
The US currently provides 22 percent of the UN budget and is the biggest single contributor, according to assessed contributions from member states. The 2024 regular and peacekeeping budget amounts to $3.59 billion.
Asked whether the US can unilaterally reduce its funding, Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury of Bangladesh and former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the UN told IPS, “No, the US cannot do that unilaterally”.
Normally, it will be negotiated in the Committee on Contributions through the agreement on the scale of assessment applicable to all Member States, he pointed out.
Finally, the issue goes to the Fifth Committee for a decision generally by consensus and is subsequently confirmed by the UNGA.
Another way to punish the UN is to delay the on-time payment of the full share of a major contributor as required by the Charter or to make a part payment of the US share of contributions. These tactics were used in the past by the US.
Asked for details on how much money the UN is set to lose and what specific programmes are being cut, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters, “We have been informed, and this started a while back but intensified over the last few days, is various agencies have gotten letters? We don’t have a ballpark figure because this has been done in a bit of a… frankly, in a chaotic way.
“But I can tell you that, for example, our colleagues at the UN [Office on] Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have had about 50 projects terminated. As the SG said, their office in Mexico, which deals, among other things, with the flow of fentanyl, may have to close. It will impact their programmes in Central America and the Darien Gap, focusing on fighting human trafficking.
“The IOM’s (International Organisation for Migration) programmes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have basically shut down. Their programmes in Haiti are at risk. And our FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) colleagues received 27 termination letters, and the list goes on.”
The Secretary-General has been on the phone with the heads of the major humanitarian development agencies to express his solidarity, but also to get a vision, to get a good picture, snapshots of what is going on, which is not a positive one in any way. Agencies are in touch with their counterparts, if they can find them, in the US government, he said.
“So, we’re continuing trying to seek some clarity. But I can tell you that for our side, our priority and our focus and our determination remain on doing everything we can to continue to provide life-saving aid to those who urgently need it,” said Dujarric.
The US, he said, has remained a founding member and a critical member of this organisation for decades.
“The generosity of the American people has helped to lift millions out of poverty, has helped to eradicate diseases, and has frankly helped to build a more prosperous and safer world for which Americans benefit and the whole world benefits. We have tried at a fairly senior level to engage, especially on this issue, but I can’t say we’ve detected much interest in engaging on this issue,” he noted.
Asked whether the UN plans for cost-cutting as part of Plan B, Dujarric said, “Well, you know, obviously, we’re also looking at the diversification of our funding partners. Our colleague, Tom Fletcher, the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs, who chairs what we call the Interagency Committee, which brings together UN agencies and NGOs… His message has also been clear, which is also that we have to figure out how we can save money.
“How we can become more efficient, how we can eliminate overlap, and eliminate turf wars. So, I think we’re very conscious of what we need to do, and I think any organisation can take a look at itself and decide that it can work better and faster.”