UN Funding Cuts, Adaptation & Diverging Operating Models
November 2026
By Katja Hemmerich
The UN Chief Executive Board’s (CEB) financial data for 2025 is now out and shows an 8% decline in overall UN system revenues from 2024 to 2025. The actual decline are in fact steeper because UN accounting rules assume that all assessed funding (about a fifth of total revenues) are fully paid - yet, the Secretariat, FAO, ILO, WHO, UNESCO and even the IAEA among others are all struggling with late or nonpayment of assessed funding by many member states, not just the US. The bigger take away is that UN system revenues have declined every year since their peak in 2022, a cumulative contraction of more than 15% between the end of 2022 and the end of 2025. With further declines expected for 2026, 2027 and possibly beyond, it is clear that cost-cutting measures alone cannot address the financial crisis, UN organizations need to adapt more broadly, and many of them already are.
Our spotlight this month explores the emerging research from the Multilateral Performance Network (MOPAN) and the International Peace Institute (IPI) about adaptations undertaken by UN entities in response to funding cuts. What both studies highlight is that organizations are using a combination of cost-saving measures and transition or drawdown techniques to try and minimize the impact on vulnerable populations, but these are nevertheless falling short. New operating models are being actively pursued by some UN organizations, or in the case of peacekeeping missions, evolving as a result of the contingency planning exercise. These individualized shifts in operating models not only represent fundamental changes for the role of the UN and how it engages with member states, but they also create decision-making dilemmas for leaders and governing bodies. We propose some concrete ways that managers, leaders and UN delegates at all levels can manage these dilemmas to facilitate better decision-making on how the UN system as a whole should move forward.
UN Entities' Adaptations to the Funding Cuts
The International Peace Institute’s publication is a note summarizing workshop discussions, reporting from missions and additional third party research on how UN peacekeeping has adapted primarily to the ‘contingency exercise’ in late 2025 to address the late or non-payment of assessed peacekeeping dues. The MOPAN study combines survey responses from 25 development and humanitarian organizations and open source documentation from and additional 14 such organizations, predominantly in the UN as well as multilateral development banks, multi-stakholder partnerships and trust funds and the ICRC. Despite the differing mandates, both studies find that organizations are trying hard to adapt to their financial constraints while maintaining as much coverage to support the populations they are serving as possible.
In its survey responses, MOPAN found that numerous entities reported increases in the use of multi-country arrangements and shared-service centres, as well as some regional and technical or knowledge hubs, as organizations reduce their numbers of personnel while trying to maintain a comparable level of service provision to existing countries and regions they serve. Surge and response capacities, and the ability to provide sustained technical support are noted to be weakening according to MOPAN as organizations struggle to maintain as much of their current support as possible.
“Funding pressures have not yet produced widespread changes in organisations’ geographic foot-print, but selective closures, relocations and new regional configurations are starting to be visible.” - MOPAN, Multilateral Organisations’ Response to the Current Funding Environment - 2026 Stocktake, October 2026
IPI’s study of peacekeeping missions notes a similar response of closing field offices accompanied by efforts to expand temporary or mobile operating bases, surge capacities and rapid response capabilities in order to try and provide a comparable level of coverage. It's interesting that peacekeeping missions are trying to increase their organizational agility, as humanitarian are being forced to reduce theirs, and it remains to be seen which may be more effective in their respective contexts. Those in peacekeeping already recognize there are shortcomings to their approach given the reduction in aviation and other physical assets, which will shorten response times.
Peacekeeping missions are also reportedly increasing their partnerships with local authorities and UN Country Teams (UNCTs) in an effort to hand over some tasks, expand information gathering and early warning inputs as their own capacities are reduced. In many cases, these are standard tactics for mission drawdowns and withdrawals, just with much less time to strengthen those relationships and map out what gets handed over. In South Sudan, the mission (UNMISS) and the UNCT even reactivated the transition planning working group to guide the handover of certain tasks to the country team and other partners.
Data on the geographic location and numbers of UN personnel validates these drawdown tactics across the system, while also highlighting their limitations, particularly given how UN presences expanded in recent years. UN system funding data from 2011 until 2025 shows that the UN system saw its largest single year increase from 2021 to 2022, up by 13%, driven largely by humanitarian crises and UN responses to conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan, the earthquake in Turkey and the Taliban's consolidation of power in Afghanistan. As a result, 2022 also saw 41 new duty stations (cities) in which the UN operated (+4%), followed by an increase of 8,093 staff of one year or longer in 2023 (+7%) in part to replace surge and temporary capacities initially deployed to the crises. Yet, in all those countries except Turkey, the need for humanitarian and recovery assistance remains.
But as the graph illustrates, the system is managing those protracted crises with less money than in 2021, comparable duty station coverage and slightly more personnel than in 2021. Between 2024 and 2025, the number of duty stations declined by 85, more than twice as much as the 2022 increase, and the overall number of staff declined by 10,922 - all while maintaining the same level of country presence as in 2024. The number of staff of one year and longer is able to remain higher than 2021 in part due to the reconfigurations of workforces. For many organizations in programme countries, the number of international professional staff fell at a faster rate than National Professional Officers -11.8% as compared to -7.3%, illustrating efforts at treating the funding cuts like a planned drawdown.
Both MOPAN and IPI highlight that there are some positive aspects in how organizations are adapting to this financial pressure. Organizational resistance to shared services, Common Back Offices and Common Premises is declining with fifteen of MOPAN’s 25 respondents reporting consolidating common or shared services within their organisation, while nine reported increased use of services provided jointly or by other organisations. Among humanitarian respondents, nine of 17 indicated that ‘shared services and system efficiency - including pooled logistics and procurement, common services and shared data and platforms’ - were advancing through deliberate change. Peacekeeping missions and 19 of MOPAN's 25 survey respondents report leveraging digital technologies, automation and AI as part of their adaption.
Yet, despite these positives, both IPI and MOPAN conclude that these primarily cost-saving measures are insufficient to allow the UN to provide the same level of coverage and quality services to the populations they serve - and unfortunately, those most in need of the UN’s help appear to be bearing the brunt.
“As noted by one UN official, “POC is proving to be among the most exposed mandated tasks under these contingency measures,” as reduced presence has increased risks to civilians, particularly in contexts with intercommunal violence.” - IPI, How UN Peacekeeping Missions are Adapting to Contingency Measures, July 2026
Humanitarian organizations responding to MOPAN’s survey similarly cited protection, as well as early recovery, as the programme areas that were most affected by personnel reductions. In terms of cross-cutting priorities, almost half of MOPAN’s survey respondents indicated that gender and women’s empowerment as well as ‘Leave No One Behind’ were most impacted by reduced capacities (12 and 11 out of 25 respondents respectively).
The Emergence of New Operating Models
The maximization of cost efficiency measures, adoption of transition measures and the ultimate inability of the UN to protect the most vulnerable highlights the need for new operating models. In peacekeeping, the business model is evolving by attrition with IPI’s study noting that missions are losing their deterrence capacities as they are forced to reduce their physical presence in communities. Research has frequently documented the positive effects of UN peacekeeping's deterrent impact, while also documenting the UN's struggle to use robust force in peacekeeping consistently and effectively. There are many reasons for these struggles, including how the Security Council designs those mandates and how they are perceived and implemented by mission leadership and troop contributing countries that will not change because of funding constraints, so the shift towards greater use of force at the expense of deterrence is risky both for missions, and the civilians they are meant to protection.
“Peacekeepers through their sizable local presence can increase the political and military costs for warring actors to engage in civilian targeting.” - H. Fjelde, L. Hultman, D. Nilsson, Protection Through Presence: UN Peacekeeping and the Costs of Targeting Civilians. 2019
The new operating model that is evolving in response to liquidity and funding challenges therefore represents a fundamental change to the nature of UN peacekeeping. According to IPI study, UN leadership in missions appear to be recognizing this shift and what it means for the future, but it is less clear whether this has been well understood at headquarters level, given that the contingency exercise was framed as a temporary exercise that should be designed as reversible.
“One UN official noted that ‘if we do not see a marked change and reversal of the current context, we will have to fundamentally reexamine how we design and deploy peace operations.’” - IPI, How UN Peacekeeping Missions are Adapting to Contingency Measures, July 2026
The MOPAN study indicates similarly mixed recognition and responses to the changing financial context by the 17 humanitarian organizations participating in their study. The most common adaptation has been ’hyper-prioritization’ by most affected communities or geographies (76%), by most severe needs (65%), and/or by focusing on life-saving activities (59%). A minority of organizations reported exploring or strengthening new operating models around anticipatory action (41%) and resilience work (29%). Interestingly, only a handful of organizations indicated a change in the use of partners for programme delivery (one organization increased while 2 decreased implementing partnership, +5% and -10% respectively) while 37% reported no change to their implementing partnerships.
These shifts in operating models come with significant operational and organizational risks - the reduction of preventive and deterrent capacities in peacekeeping risks civilian and peacekeepers’ lives, and by extension organizational credibility, while investment in anticipatory action and resilience requires governments, donors and other stakeholders to take greater political risks by investing limited resources in preventive capacities that may not be needed. These are fundamental changes to how member states and the UN engage with each other, and yet it seems UN entities and field missions are being left to decide these questions on their own. As a UN University (UNU) review of the UNMISS contingency response noted:
This creates a fundamental problem of accountability. In effect, strategic choices about where and how the UN can operate are being made indirectly, through budgetary constraints rather than through political deliberation. As a result, decisions taken (or not taken) in financial terms are shaping the realities of peacekeeping missions on the ground, without a corresponding framework for political accountability. - E. Gaston & C. Nickel, Defaulting into Transition: How Financial Cuts are Affecting Peacekeeping Realities, March 2026
The Related Decision-Making Dilemmas and How to Address Them
The lack of a political framework, particularly at system level creates dilemmas for leaders as well as member states. As MOPAN highlights the lack of system-level coordination of how organizations are adapting is potentially creating gaps in how it is serving populations. The risks and opportunities of shifting operating models is therefore also not being captured or strategically considered. And that means if and when something goes wrong, leaders in the field or within individual organizations will be blamed for trying to find the best way forward in the absence of strategic level guidance and accountability. While the new Secretary-General has a role in addressing this, top down approaches are unlikely to solve these dilemmas.
One bottom up strategy that can be leverage is supporting and using data and analytics to make these shifts, and their consequences, more obvious at heaquarters and to system-level governance and decision-making bodies. MOPAN's stocktaking is just one example, and more organizations should participate in this regular exercise. The CEB's already invaluable data should also start including more data not just on the category or location of personnel who stil exist in the system, but the functions which they carry out so that there can be more qualitative analysis of the UN system's capacities. Data on the effectiveness and efficiency of current and emerging operating models in different contexts is sorely missing, as the Joint Inspection Unit has often highlighted. As we found in our own research commissioned by C4UN, neither UN evaluations nor MOPAN have been comparing data or analyses on direct UN delivery versus implementation partnerships and their respective costs.
Too often data in the UN is presented and analyzed vertically. Reporting to legislative bodies like Executive Boards, tends to compile data on what that one organizaton did at country, regional and global level, how many people it served, how many partners it worked with, and increasingly how many in need it was unable to reach or what activities were curtailed. A more horizontal, integrated analysis would facilitate not just a better understanding of what is happening on the ground but also better decision-making of how organizations within the broader system should or shouldn't be changing. Coordinated decision-making across Executive Boards and in the General Assembly, as well as UN system policy-making fora, like the Executive Committee or High Level Committee on Management, is more likely if all UN entities started reporting a consistent, shared baseline of which populations in countries and regions are most in need of what, such as the different forms of protection, for instance, which of those needs their own organization was able to fulfill, what tasks it actively transitioned to other UN entities, local authorities or partners, and which groups no one is able to reach because of reduced capacities. Some of this integrated analysis is being done by entities like the UN Operations and Crisis Centre (UNOCC) or the UN System Evaluation Group, but it is rarely systematically shared across governing bodies. This reinforces the governance disconnects that have constrained system-wide change in the UN80 process.
Part of the challenge in this approach is that UN organizations will need to shift from a reporting style to member states that emphasizes how much they alone have achieved (and by implication to why they deserve more money) to one that emphasizes the limitations of what they and the broader UN system can achieve, and therefore when, where and why those organizations and their member states need to shift into new operating models and how these complement adaptations by others. This reporting change comes with political risks for senior leaders, and by extension a prisoner's dilemma if only one organization starts to make this change alone.
Evaluation functions can start to pave the way for this reporting, as can the managers who are directly experiencing the system's overstretch everyday. If they continuously present the data and analysis through a horizontally integrated lense it becomes easier for senior leaders to figure out the least risky way to share that data. Delegates to Executive Boards and other legislative bodies should also be requesting horizontally integrated analyses, thereby increasing the political risks of not providing that information. All of which can faciliate the shared decision-making and accountability that the UN system clearly needs to proactively direct the development of new operating models and the related political accountability, instead of letting change happen by attrition.
