UNITED NATIONS: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Friday warned that the world body is on the brink of financial collapse and could run out of cash by July, as he urged countries to pay their dues.<\/p>\n
The UN faces chronic budget problems because some member states do not pay their mandatory contributions in full, while others do not pay on time, forcing it into hiring freezes and cutbacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cEither all Member States honor their obligations to pay in full and on time \u2014 or Member States must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse,\u201d Secretary-General Guterres wrote in a letter.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration has in recent months reduced its funding to some UN agencies and has rejected or delayed some mandatory contributions.<\/p>\n
Trump has often questioned the UN\u2019s relevance and attacked its priorities.<\/p>\n
The organization\u2019s top decision-making body, the Security Council, is paralyzed because of tensions between the United States and Russia and China, all three of which are permanent, veto-wielding members.<\/p>\n
Trump also launched his \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d this month, which critics say is intended to become a rival to the UN.<\/p>\n
– \u2018Untenable\u2019 –<\/p>\n
Although more than 150 member states have paid their dues, the UN ended 2025 with $1.6 billion in unpaid contributions \u2014 more than double the amount for 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current trajectory is untenable. It leaves the Organization exposed to structural financial risk,\u201d Guterres wrote.<\/p>\n
The UN is also facing a related problem: it must reimburse member states for unspent funds, Farhan Haq, one of the Guterres\u2019 spokespeople, said during a press briefing.<\/p>\n
The secretary-general also highlighted that problem, writing in the letter: \u201cWe are trapped in a Kafkaesque cycle; expected to give back cash that does not exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe practical reality is stark: unless collections drastically improve, we cannot fully execute the 2026 program budget approved in December,\u201d Guterres\u2019 wrote, adding: \u201cWorse still, based on historical trends, regular budget cash could run out by July.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guterres, who will step down at the end of 2026, this month gave his last annual speech setting out his priorities for the year ahead and said the world was riven with \u201cself-defeating geopolitical divides (and) brazen violations of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also slammed \u201cwholesale cuts in development and humanitarian aid\u201d \u2014 an apparent reference to deep cuts to the budgets of UN agencies made by the United States under the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Friday warned that the world body is on the brink of financial collapse and could run out of cash by July, as he urged countries to pay their dues. The UN faces chronic budget problems because some member states do not pay their mandatory contributions in full, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":93057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93058,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93040\/revisions\/93058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}