UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. chief launched a new initiative Wednesday to reform the United Nations as it approaches its 80th anniversary, saying the 193-member global organization needs an urgent update to deal with major funding reductions and still tackle the world’s challenges.
Secretary-General António Guterres dismissed any relationship between his UN80 Initiative and cuts to foreign aid and other programs that U.S. President Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk say will make the U.S. government more efficient.
“We are talking about completely different processes, methodologies and objectives,” Guterres told reporters. “This is a continuation and an intensification of work that we have always been doing.”
He said the U.N. initiative’s objective will be to present member states with proposals for improving the way the organization works, reviewing the increasing number of mandates from the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly, and making structural changes to streamline operations.
Guterres and his predecessors in past decades have struggled to reform the United Nations, which was established following World War II, and bring it into a modern era with different powers, new technology and greater global divisions.
One key problem is that while the secretary-general is the U.N.’s chief executive, power rests with the 193 member nations that have very different ideas about the U.N. and the world.
Stressing that the United Nations reflects the world, Guterres said these are times of intense uncertainty and unpredictability.
He said the U.N.’s work is affected by multiplying conflicts, inadequate progress in reducing poverty, widespread flouting of international law, violations of human rights and the lack of guardrails for new technologies, including artificial intelligence — to name a few.
“And all of them are aggravated by major reductions of funding for humanitarian aid and development cooperation,” the secretary-general said. “In many cases, these obstacles are fueling dangerous levels of geopolitical tensions and divisions.”
Guterres didn’t name any countries, but the Trump administration has dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was in charge of humanitarian aid, and cut 83% of USAID’s programs. Other countries, including the United Kingdom, also are reducing humanitarian aid.
He said the U.N.’s resources have been shrinking, pointing to its liquidity crisis for at least the past seven years because not all member states pay their yearly dues, and many don’t pay on time.
Guterres said the UN80 Initiative is not only about reforming the U.N. but about “better serving people whose very lives depend on us” and “taxpayers around the world who underwrite everything we do.”
The initiative will cover not only the U.N. Secretariat but all its funds and agencies and offices in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. It will be led by U.N. Undersecretary-General for Policy Guy Ryder, who will head a task force of top officials from the U.N. system, Guterres said.
The U.N. budget for 2025, which was adopted last December, is $3.72 billion.