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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

UN faces $500m budget cut and 20% job losses after big drop in US funding

A woman sits with children in front of a white tent in a refugee camp on bare soil under a hot sun; the tent has large blue UNHCR lettering and logo on its side.
Refugees in the Goram camp in Juba, South Sudan, last year. In 2024, UNHCR received two-fifths of its funding from the US. Photograph: Michael Kappeler/DPA/Alamy

The UN will need to cut $500m (about £370m) from next year’s budget and lose 20% of its staff as it struggles to cope with a massive reduction in funding by the Trump administration.

The plan, in gestation since Donald Trump started cutting his foreign aid budget, is likely to involve an initial minimum 3,000 job cuts out of a 35,000-strong main workforce. The overall UN core or regular budget would be cut from $3.7bn to about $3.2bn next year. It means reductions of 15.1% in resources and 18.8% in posts in the regular budget compared with the 2025 budget.

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