António Guterres, president of the United Nations (UN), has called on countries to pay their contributions, warning of the risk of bankruptcy for the organization and the fact that it could run out of money by July this year.
According to Guterres, the UN faces chronic budgetary problems because some member states do not pay their mandatory contributions in full, while others do not pay on time, forcing it to freeze hiring and make cuts.
“Either all member states honor their obligations to pay in full and on time — or member states must fundamentally review our financial rules to avoid imminent financial collapse,” Secretary-General Guterres wrote in a letter.
The UN chief’s warning also comes at a time when the administration of US President Donald Trump has cut funding to some UN agencies in recent months and rejected or delayed some mandatory contributions.
Trump has frequently questioned the relevance of the UN and attacked its priorities. Tensions between the United States, Russia, and China — all permanent members with veto power in the Security Council, the organization’s highest decision-making body — have left the Security Council paralyzed.
In January, Trump launched his “Peace Council,” which critics say is intended to rival the UN.
‘Unsustainable’
Although more than 150 member states have paid their debts, the UN ended 2025 with $1.6 billion in unpaid contributions—more than double the amount in 2024. “The current trajectory is unsustainable. It leaves the organization exposed to structural financial risk,” Guterres wrote.
At the same time, the UN also faces a related problem: it has to reimburse member states for unspent funds, said Farhan Haq, one of Guterres’ spokespeople, during a press conference. The secretary-general also highlighted this problem, writing in the letter: “We are caught in a Kafkaesque cycle—where opaque and illogical rules prevent the resolution of a problem—where we are expected to return money that does not exist.”
“The practical reality is stark: unless collections improve dramatically, we cannot fully execute the 2026 program budget approved in December,” Guterres wrote, adding that “worse still, based on historical trends, regular budget money could run out in July.”
Guterres, who will leave office at the end of 2026, gave his last annual speech this month setting out his priorities for the coming year and said the world was torn apart by “self-destructive geopolitical divisions (and) blatant violations of international law.”
The European Commission president also criticized “widespread cuts in development and humanitarian aid” — an apparent reference to deep cuts in the budgets of UN agencies made by the United States as part of the Trump administration’s “America First” policies.
Source: Euronews
