By Brian Gorlick

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Existential Crisis for the United Nations?

On 28 January 2026, the UN secretary general wrote to all Permanent Missions to the United Nations in NY warning them of the risk of ‘imminent financial collapse’ of the organisation, noting that the ‘integrity of the entire system’ depended on states adhering to their obligation under the Charter to pay ‘assessed contributions’. While 77 per cent of the 2025 contributions owed to the UN had been paid, a record amount remains unpaid. The United States and China are the UN’s largest donors, and both are in arears. Between them they contribute 37 percent to the UN’s regular budget and 45 per cent to peacekeeping.

The SG’s stark message arrived several days after the Canadian prime minister gave a speech at the World Economic Forum noting a ‘rupture in the world order, the end of a nice story and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints’. Despite extensive media attention and a standing ovation for PM Carney in Davos, neither of these prominent statesmen said anything new.

The UN’s financial situation with unpaid dues is a continuous concern, and the world order has been ruptured for as long as the UN has existed given the pick and choose disregard of some powerful states adhering to principles of international law. The situation today is seemingly more dire as the US has made it official policy to aggressively challenge the organisation. While not the only UN member state asserting its authority, as the ‘most powerful nation in the world’, described by the SG, and the organisation’s single largest donor, a US backlash is a serious concern. That too is not without precedent. The case of the sixth UN SG, Boutrous Boutros-Ghali, a former Egyptian foreign minister and law professor, is illustrative. He was not granted a second term as SG after the US, under the Clinton administration, objected to his continuing. The current SG openly challenging the US administration, even in the final year of his last term, is something he has chosen to avoid.

Nonetheless as chief administrative officer the SG has substantial authority and decision-making power and some have argued that he could take bolder steps to redress and mitigate the current fiscal crisis. But Guterres seems content to take a traditionalist view of his role as SG and refer to UN member states for direction, and apportioning blame.

Recent US government actions that openly challenge the integrity and credibility of the UN have arrived in spades, including imposing sanctions against judges and officials of the International Criminal Court, withholding programme contributions, and divesting and withdrawing from several UN programmes and processes. The US president’s proposal to create a Board of Peace is another concern; as is dismantling of key institutions and funding cuts in support of humanitarian and public health programmes.

The UN has relied on American financial support to develop and sustain programme delivery since 1945, the year it was created. UNHCR receives more than 40 per cent of its annual budget contributions from the US. It is a sad reality however that adequate funding and government cooperation to assist refugee operations is never guaranteed – on the contrary, as evidenced by UNHCR’s perennial funding shortfall of 48 per cent for its global operations. With recent funding cuts UNHCR is reducing its staff by 30 per cent. Amongst other challenges this creates enormous stress and uncertainty for staff and hampers delivery in operations.

Proposed Institutional Reform

As part of the SG’s UN80 reform initiative, a leaked UN Task Force Memo calling for consolidation of complementary operational entities is of particular interest. The paper titled ‘UN 80 structural changes and programmatic alignment – Compilation of non-attributable suggestions by the UN80 Task Force’, marked ‘strictly confidential’, makes the following proposals:

• Create a streamlined ‘UN Humanitarian Response and Protection Organisation’ by integrating UNHCR, IOM and OCHA, and leveraging WFP’s expertise for material assistance, procurement, distribution and logistics
• Establish a ‘UN Humanitarian Operations Department’ that manages UN-wide humanitarian preparedness and response, including OCHA, WFP, UNRWA and a UN Refugee & Migration Agency (merging UNHCR & IOM). Consider whether the UNDP Crisis Bureau should be consolidated into the same Department
• Merge the operational responsibilities and capabilities of operational agencies (WFP, UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO) in humanitarian and conflict affected contexts
• Merge Rome-based agencies’ (WFP, FAO et al) operational capacity
• Align programmes for overlapping agencies: UNHCR, IOM; WFP, FAO, etc.
• Consider whether OCHA should remain in New York or move to ensure field operations are more localized with implementing partners

While the paper also addresses peacekeeping and development, the focus of this commentary is on gathering UNHCR, IOM, UNRWA, WFP, and the handful of relevant OHCHR posts under one umbrella. At this time of fiscal crisis and loss of support by important member states for international refugee law and protection principles, along with diminishing financial support, radical thinking is in order.

At Davos, the Canadian PM memorably said that ‘nostalgia is not a strategy’. This applies to the UN. Despite the hallowed status of the international refugee instruments, at a time of financial constraint and to increase efficiencies, avoid duplication and competition for limited resources, and reduce costs and overhead, institutional reform is warranted. Anyone who has worked with and within UN humanitarian operations and governance structures is aware of the inordinate process-driven work and time spent on ‘coordination’, both in field operations and headquarters.[1]

A common scenario is a senior UN official such as the resident coordinator attempting to get a group of UN actors to prioritize his or her vision. Rather than creating new pathways and inter-agency cooperation, rigid planning and budget structures and in some cases institutional arrogance can frustrate these ambitions. Attempts to break down siloed behaviour risks pushing UN entities to hang on to what they have, resulting in not sharing resources, information and contacts. Another common occurrence is UN humanitarian agencies and international NGOs presenting identical funding appeals that target the same group of donors while chasing the same funds to perform similar work.

Despite challenges of coordination and competition between UN actors and partners, when cooperation does takes place, as we have seen in dealing with internally displaced persons (IDPs) under the ‘cluster approach’, or humanitarian settings where any credible mitigation of problems is a satisfactory outcome, the system can work well. Despite positive examples, an honest assessment would conclude that what much of what IOM is doing is already or can be done by UNHCR and vice versa. Humanitarian delivery could be done by WFP, local governments and NGOs instead of UN agencies like UNHCR and UNRWA. Rather than one entity attempting to deliver on everything, UNHCR should let others like WFP run cash assistance operations and humanitarian logistics. Or leave capable international and local NGOs to fund and build schools, hospitals, and water systems on their own.

In major humanitarian operations, the UN has become a passthrough service to receive and channel funds at considerable cost. While governments continue to fund individual UN entities, prioritising their favourites and earmarking funds, costs and efficiencies could be greatly reduced with consolidation and increased localization. Whether the ‘humanitarian reset’ led by the UN emergency relief coordinator will move in this direction remains to be seen.

Consolidating UN entities to enhance delivery, advocacy, and solidarity

UNHCR’s common mantra is that it remains ‘the’ protection agency for forcibly displaced persons. While an attractive catchphrase, this is false. Any international organisation or partner that promotes the human rights of migrants or displaced persons are engaged in protection work. In this connection, refugees and local communities are often the most effective actors.

While UNHCR has authority under its 1950 Statute to grant refugee status (‘mandate refugees’) and the Office can play an important role in supervising and monitoring compliance with international refugee law by states, as a protection agency in today’s complicated world the High Commissioner’s protection voice is muted. Moreover, UNHCR’s exercise of mandate refugee status determination and its monitoring activities have dwindled. UNHCR is often content to propose broad policy prescriptions but is wary about highlighting substandard behaviour by individual states. While the Office previously prepared annual protection reports that would identify government shortcomings, that activity ended years ago purportedly because governments objected.

Maintaining government relations while remaining silent or engaging in quiet diplomacy is the chosen path. UNHCR choosing not to publicly report on human rights concerns is the perceived trade-off to ensure continued humanitarian access. While ‘neutrality’ and ‘impartiality’ are core principles of humanitarian work, human rights protection has a distinct bias in favour of victims. Providing an institutional platform to speak out could change the approach if UNHCR was part of a broader rights-oriented operational structure.

From a political-economy perspective, consolidating institutions and functions would save funds and increase management and governance efficiencies. Moving headquarters out of New York and Geneva, two of the most expensive cities in the world, and abolishing business class travel for UN officials, would save millions of dollars. The plethora of directors and senior managers, renting and managing expensive real estate, and administrative services would shrink, and programmatic and normative turf wars would diminish with colleagues on the ‘same team’ sharing a common goal of ‘delivering as one’.

Consolidating mandates, working methods, programme implementation, and moving operations and management structures to the global south would save resources and bring services nearer to beneficiaries while stimulating local economies. The principle of ‘solidarity’ would become more of a reality if UN entities – as dramatically experienced by UNRWA – could not be easily isolated and attacked. If relevant entities were part of the same structure and team seeking and sharing resources, enjoying the same terms of engagement, and safeguarding and promoting common mandates and interests, institutional strength and protection would be enhanced.

As concerns governance structures, the UN would benefit and save resources if governing boards, executive committees, and global processes were rolled into one. The UNHCR Executive Committee could include those aspects of the Global Refugee Forum worth maintaining, and IOM’s and UNRWA’s programme management and resource issues could be addressed by the same body. IOM would benefit by moving away from project-based funding to a regular budget structure. OHCHR migration work could be included in the consolidated structure. Subject-matter expertise would be gathered in the same singular institution, with common rules for state party governance and membership.

Another component of institutional reform would be to diversify funding which would benefit smaller entities that lack resources. Success in the private sector and avoiding over-reliance on a handful of government donors would be the aim and an attractive model for middle- and lower-income countries, especially when they see their contributions resulting in more targeted and efficient delivery by fewer actors closer to where needs are; along with headquarters nearer to beneficiaries in less elitist settings. Refugees, IDPs, stateless persons, persons seeking complementary protection, and others migrating for ‘mixed reasons’ including environmental degradation – who all enjoy human rights protections – would jointly benefit. A one-stop shop would be easier to manage and navigate for those seeking protection of their rights.

A key element in proposing broadscale institutional reform is to do so in ‘good faith’, with the end game being building an inclusive operational framework and outlook. Consolidating mandates and organisational structures as part of the UN80 process is already underway, with gender/women’s entities UN Women and UNFPA (not without considerable concern), and UNDP and UNOPS under discussion. Beyond reducing costs and avoiding duplication of services there are sound reasons of principle to join complementary entities, with normative coherence being one.

Despite the lexis specialis of international refugee law, as noted by former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, keeping human rights and refugee law separate is unnecessary and creates a disservice. In a 2008 comment in Refugee Survey Quarterly, Justice Arbour noted that:

‘… the notion that the fields of refugee law and human rights law occupy two separate champs d’application has developed and has often proven surprisingly resilient. Those who hold such notion of the two disciplines do a disservice to both. I am quite convinced that such a division is wrong as a matter of principle, law, and practice’.

Arbour’s concern was never taken up at the time as the UN was flush with cash and the idea of converging jurisprudence and institutions was decidedly unattractive to UN leadership, and arguably still is, given who remains at the helm of the UN Secretariat and OHCHR, both ex-UNHCR officials.

Times have changed. Beyond finances, UN leadership and importantly member states need to consider real change. Unlike what the SG suggested in his cri de coeur that the problem is lack of funding solely resting with states, of fundamental importance is to ensure that meaningful reform proposals are put forward. By any sober assessment, the architecture and mandates relating to migration, refugees and human rights issues in the UN system have grown confusingly large and complex. That there has been a worrying degree of duplicity, overlap, and lack of coordination has been long recognised, and formed the basis for earlier attempts at reform. The international community is doing so again with UN80.

Building a common institution with complementary and reinforcing mandates seated in regions where needs are greatest, would require heroic degrees of cooperation and a ‘delivering as one’ mentality, a concept introduced twenty years ago. UN migration, forced migration, and human rights entities remain ‘separate and unequal’. Consolidation would promote a more equitable, efficient, and credible operational and politically viable system. Institutional solidarity would result when various actors work together, speak with one voice, and employ the same toolbox of norms, actively ‘protecting’ rather than competing. Keeping complementary UN institutions separate risks continuing to ‘muddle through’ and expend energy and resources trying to coordinate efforts while chasing limited resources and political support.

Proposing far-reaching institutional reform is a considerable challenge that has been tried before. Despite the difficulties, we should never avoid speaking up when things are not working well and could work better. Ensuring the institutions that were created during earlier world ‘ruptures’ will continue to support the individuals they aim to serve and protect, now and in the future, is a worthwhile goal.

[1] Interview with Ruven Menikdiwela, UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Protection Leadership in a Changing World podcast (ECHO/UNHCR), 20 January 2026, at 8.30 mins et seq.

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