By Javier Surasky
A golden
rule of institutional financing, whether for companies, NGOs, or any other
organization, is to seek a broad base of funders, avoiding dependence on a
small core that, by changing its policies, could severely affect the financial
structure of our Organization.
People
often talk about the manufacturing defects of the UN Charter and explain their
reasons in the post-World War II international political situation: the
structure and decision-making in the Security Council, poor governance without
sufficient accountability mechanisms, the near-impossible introduction of
reforms to the founding document of the Organization are some examples, and
each has produced profound damage to the UN's ability to defend the value of
multilateralism.
- In the case of the Security Council, the great powers' interests determine the game, and the protection and promotion of a peaceful world are subordinated to their national policy priorities. Furthermore, four of the "permanent five" are the world's largest arms exporters: The United States leads the list with 43% of total arms exports, followed by France (9.6%), Russia (7.8%), and China (5.9%). The United Kingdom ranks seventh (3.6%) and, to make matters worse, four of them do not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice: the U.S., China, France, and Russia.
- Poor governance has resulted in corruption scandals, a lack of transparency, obstacles to the participation of non-governmental actors, insufficient accountability, and the establishment of a heavy bureaucracy that, by inertia, is not usually inclined to the reform processes that have been attempted.
- The difficulties in reforming
the UN Charter have not only led to "forced" processes to expand
the members of the Security Council or ECOSOC as the number of countries
joining the UN grew, but have prevented adapting its structures to the
needs of each historical period, reducing the Organization's capacity for
action and response to emerging challenges. A conference to review the
Charter, provided for in Article 109 of its text, was never held.
Despite all
this, and the criticisms that the UN receives with or without reason, its work
has made the world a slightly less undignified place, and considerably better
than our world would have been without it, with the great powers moving freely,
without scrutiny, denunciations, or the need to justify their actions.
Many people
in vulnerable countries would have died without UN support, many forced
migrants would have perished or their children would have been left without
education if the UN had not been with them in the most challenging moments,
many children living in poor countries would die or suffer the consequences of
preventable and treatable diseases if the UN had not ensured their care and
access to vaccines. The list is endless. And it was built despite the obstacles
set in the Charter by the 1945s' greatest powers.
Today, the
main institutional representative of multilateralism faces unprecedented impacts
from another of its manufacturing flaws: the financing of its activity.
The quota
system left the Organization dependent on a few countries for the resources it
requires to fulfill the mandate it was given, and especially on a single major
contributor: the United States. Today, that country attacks the UN through this
channel as part of its policy of contempt for multilateralism.
This is not
a new phenomenon, and the U.S. is not the only "strong" contributor
withdrawing resources from the United Nations system: European countries that
presented themselves as defenders of multilateralism, human rights, or the
environment are following the same path, which began years ago through the
payment of quotas outside of schedule, the contribution of resources tied to
specific countries or activities accompanied by reduction of general (core)
contributions, which affects the ability to set priorities and effectively
manage existing resources.
To understand
what we're talking about, the UN's regular budget for 2025 is
approximately USD 3.7 billion, an increase from USD 3.6 billion in 2024. These budgets do not include
the costs of peacekeeping operations or specialized funds and programs (UNICEF,
UNDP, UNHCR, etc.), which have separate budgets.
What do
these figures mean? Let's make some comparisons to put them in place:
- New York City has a 2025 annual budget of USD 112.4 billion, more than 31 times larger than the UN's.
- Tokyo manages an estimated budget for 2025 of USD 63 billion, more than 17 times larger than the UN's (the data is a translation from the original in Japanese using AI).
- More modestly, London operates with an estimated budget for 2025 of USD 30 billion, 8 times larger than the UN's.
- A smaller city like Los Angeles manages a proposal of USD 12.8
billion for its fiscal year 2024-2025 budget, 3.5 times larger than the
UN's.
Other
comparisons to better situate ourselves?
- The combined budget of Real Madrid, Manchester FC, Barcelona, and Paris Saint-Germain is USD 4.101 billion, just above the UN.
- The annual military spending on
weapons in
2024 was USD 2.7 trillion.
The
Secretary-General's "UN80" initiative, referring to the 80 years we
celebrate in 2025 since the creation of the UN, is not an efficiency plan, nor
a reform for effectiveness: it is a survival strategy that will lead to merging
entities and drastically reducing UN personnel. The impacts on the regional
level of the system's work may be of such a scale that they empty it of
opportunities to fulfill its mandates, assuming they remain standing.
A memo on the discussions taking place in the UN80 process that has been leaked proposes
"consolidating dozens of UN agencies into four primary departments: peace
and security, humanitarian affairs, sustainable development, and human
rights."
- The operational aspects of the World Food Program, UNICEF, WHO, and UNHCR would be merged into a single humanitarian entity. UNAIDS would merge into WHO.
- UN development agencies like UNDP could merge with the WTO.
- Official UN documents would no longer be translated into six official languages.
- Agency workers could be
relocated to lower-cost cities, always keeping Northern countries as the
axis. The first suggestion that has emerged is to move them from Geneva
and New York to Rome. A memo sent by the Secretary-General's Chief of
Staff to the heads of UN entities in New York and Geneva states that all
positions that do not involve daily interactions with intergovernmental
bodies are relocatable. A first "list of positions to relocate"
is expected by May 16.
From a
personal perspective, I see those changes enhancing coordination problems and
administrative costs, while undermining the effectiveness and efficiency of
processes.
There is no
way that an already insufficient budget can be reduced and result in a stronger
United Nations. Although we know that private companies that carry out massive
layoffs increase their stock market value, that is a logic that does not apply
to the UN.
Less UN is
not the solution to our problems, but the direct path to crises of a magnitude
that I don't even want to imagine.
It is
time to be creative and put first the values that the UN is called to represent
and defend, and
then find ways to achieve them efficiently, reforming what needs to be reformed
based on the consideration of objectives, not the desire for funding.
The UN must
change; it should have done so decades ago. The promises made in 1945 remain
broken, and we cannot allow this to continue.