Chris Edwards and Yasmeen Kallash-Kyler
With spending soaring and debt piling higher, the federal government is driving into a fiscal tornado. The latest figures from the US Treasury show a budget deficit of $1.1 trillion over just the first five months of the current fiscal year, with spending up 13 percent over the same period last year. Spending reforms are long overdue.
One place to look for savings is the US funding of the United Nations (UN) and its myriad of agencies. One option is to withdraw US support from particular UN agencies. Another option is to renegotiate the financial terms of the UN headquarters in Manhattan, as proposed last week in the Wall Street Journal. And yet a further option is to pull out of the UN altogether, as proposed in legislation by Senator Mike Lee (R‑UT) and cosponsors.
Let’s look at how the UN is funded, and the amounts paid by US taxpayers. Funding comes from three sources:
- Assessed revenues are required contributions from member governments based on each country’s “capacity to pay.” Larger countries with higher incomes pay more. These donations fund the UN regular budget, UN peacekeeping, and numerous UN agencies.
- Voluntary revenues are optional contributions from member governments and other sources and are mainly earmarked for particular UN activities, such as the UN Development Program and the World Food Program.
- Other revenues include fees, investment income, and any other revenue not considered member country contributions.
Figure 1 shows total UN revenues from all sources increased from $39.6 billion in 2010 to $67.6 billion in 2023. In 2023, assessed revenues were $13.8 billion, voluntary revenues were $46.7 billion, and other revenues were $7.0 billion. Many UN agencies receive a blend of funding from all three sources.
Of the $67.6 billion in 2023, $46.4 billion came directly from member governments, while the other $21.3 billion came from a range of public and private entities, including the European Union, the World Bank, corporations, and foundations. The Gates Foundation, for example, contributed $459 million. The UN breaks down the $46.4 billion by country but apparently not the $21.3 billion.
Figure 2 shows that the US paid 28 percent ($13.0 billion) of the $46.4 billion of UN member government funding in 2023. That included 6.8 percent of UN funding from US-assessed funding, 21.0 percent from US voluntary funding, and 0.1 percent from US other funding.
The Congressional Research Service said that due to budget complexity, there is no “one number” that represents total US funding of the UN. But the number would seem to be the $13.0 billion, plus an unknown amount of US funding in the “other” category. As an example of other funding, the US is a funder of the World Bank, which gave the UN $1.5 billion in 2023.
UN Bureaucracy
The UN system is a vast network of agencies, funds, programs, departments, offices, bodies, functional commissions, regional commissions, subsidiary organs, and other entities. According to this chart, entities report to either one or two of the four “principal organs,” which are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Secretariat, and the Economic and Social Council.
- General Assembly. The 193-member assembly oversees funds, programs, and subsidiary organs, such as the Human Rights Council and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The assembly also interacts with “related organizations,” such as the International Criminal Court. The UN budget is passed with each country getting one vote, which gives a large group of aid-recipient countries the power to push for budget increases.
- Security Council. The council has 15 members and oversees peacekeeping and security activities. Currently, there are 11 UN peacekeeping missions around the world.
- Secretariat. The central bureaucracy of the UN includes many departments and offices, from the well-known Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG) to the lesser-known Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing Countries (UN-OHRLLS).
- Economic and Social Council. The council includes a rotating group of 54 member governments and oversees a vast number of commissions, bodies, and specialized agencies. The latter include the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Health Organization (WHO), and numerous others. The UN’s specialized agencies have a great deal of autonomy in their operations.
In addition, the UN has created entities with cross-cutting duties to coordinate often overlapping activities across agencies. The UN Development System is a group of more than 30 UN entities with a development focus. The UN has Country Teams led by Resident Coordinators to organize the efforts of multiple UN agencies within particular countries. And there is a UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination, which facilitates meetings of 31 UN agency heads.
The number of UN employees increased from 106,059 in 2017 to 133,126 in 2023. However, those figures appear to exclude some UN-related entities, such as the World Bank.
Just 15 percent of the global UN workforce is located in the Americas. While UN headquarters are in New York, the headquarters for many UN agencies are abroad in about 30 different countries. Also, many UN organizations have multiple offices spread around the world. For example, the Secretariat’s Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) has 19 offices distributed across the globe.
UN Funding in the Federal Budget
Congress funds the UN and its agencies within numerous accounts in the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) appropriations bills. Some budget line items fund assessed payments, while others fund voluntary payments.
However, the Congressional Research Service noted that Congress has partly ceded its spending authority: “Congress does not specifically appropriate funding to many UN bodies. Instead, it often appropriates lump-sum amounts to UN-related accounts. As a result, the executive branch has some leeway to determine how funds are allocated, often with little or no congressional consultation.”
Current Policy Actions
The Trump administration has cut foreign aid spending, including some UN activities. The administration has withdrawn the US from the WHO and the Human Rights Council and has extended the US funding ban of UNRWA. Additionally, the White House is reviewing US support of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).