NEW YORK - UN Secretary-General António Guterres has ordered all UN peacekeeping missions funded by the peacekeeping budget to immediately put in place contingency measures in case of funding shortfalls, a senior UN official said.
In a closed briefing to journalists, the official said that the arrears of member states to the peacekeeping budget exceeded two billion US dollars in the current budget period, which began in July 2025. In addition, the UN is facing delayed, partial or completely missing dues payments from some member states.
Contingency measures include carefully managed cuts in uniformed forces, civilian personnel and operational activities, with efforts focused on maintaining core mandate functions and ensuring security.
"We have no choice but to put these measures in place to prevent the financial collapse of operations. We very much regret that we have to resort to this, but there is simply no other option," said the official.
He said UN peacekeeping missions will have to identify savings of 15 per cent of their budgets, to be implemented within nine months. They will also have to repatriate or reduce approximately 25 percent of their total number of officers and police officers, as well as their equipment.
All UN member states must pay their dues in full and on time because that is the only way to keep peacekeeping operations going, the official stressed.
At the end of June, the UN General Assembly approved a peacekeeping budget for fiscal year 2025-2026 of $5.38 billion, a slight decrease from the previous year.
Xinhua/gnews.cz - GH
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