GENEVA: UN cost savings plans for next year envisage far smaller cuts to senior staff than to lower ranks, a draft budget document shows, a contrast likely to fuel division just as financial support for the institution is slipping.
Secretary General Antonio Guterres wants to shrink the regular budget by 15 percent to improve efficiency and cut costs as the United Nations runs into a cash crisis as it turns 80.
A copy of the revised 2026 budget showed just two of 58 department head posts in the layer of under-secretaries-general beneath Guterres, or 3 percent, will go.
That compares with around 19 percent across the board and up to 28 percent for one lower-ranking category, according to Reuters calculations based on the UN document.
Criticism of top-heavy UN structure barely addressed
Ian Richards, president of the UN Geneva Staff Union, said Guterres’ proposals “will make the global body more top-heavy and bureaucratic.”
UN humanitarian agencies with their own budgets are set to shed more than a quarter of jobs.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said it was “inevitable” that the biggest reductions were where the workforce of more than 14,000 was largest.
“The timing of the UN80 revised estimates precluded more significant organizational restructuring that could reduce senior-level posts,” he said.
But he added that there was potential for further reductions in the future, including at senior levels.
The US and China are the two biggest contributors, together making up 40 percent of the regular budget, and both are in arrears.
US President Donald Trump, who is skeptical of multilateral institutions, slammed the UN this week at its headquarters, though he later told Guterres he backs it “100 percent.”
The number of senior posts has swollen over the decades – something that a UN internal memo this year sought to address through a major overhaul.
Countries guard prestigious UN positions
A non-American under-secretary-general in New York with no dependents earns a tax-free net salary of nearly $270,000, a UN website showed. Extra grants and allowances are given for relocation costs, a non-working spouse and children.
UN officials say these cabinet-rank posts are the toughest to eliminate, partly because countries view them as sources of prestige and influence. Unwritten rules reserve some for specific states.
Ronny Patz, an expert in UN financing, said Guterres appeared to have tried to avoid a backlash by sparing posts at the top. “It’s definitely not a bold proposal. He’s left out some of the hardest choices.”
The proposals are not final and require approval by the General Assembly’s ‘Fifth Committee’ in December after consultations with countries.
Dujarric said reducing senior posts meant structural changes, which would require member states’ approval.
Under the proposed budget, the under-secretary-general roles to be trimmed are one for policy and the special adviser on Cyprus. In the next layer down, six assistant secretary-general posts will be cut, or 11 percent.
Doubts about the UN’s future abound internally; in a survey of employees in August, less than a fifth voiced confidence in Guterres’ leadership.
Less than 10 percent said they thought UN job reforms to date were based on a sound rationale.
UN cuts for 2026 mostly spare its elite, draft budget shows
https://arab.news/b2cmc
UN cuts for 2026 mostly spare its elite, draft budget shows
- Just three percent of top-level UN posts set to be cut, document shows
- Internal confidence in UN leadership low, survey indicates
Mexico’s Sheinbaum to hold a support rally following major protests
- Sheinbaum called for supporters to gather in the capital on the weekend in what analysts said was an attempt to demonstrate her support in the face of growing scrutiny
MEXICO CITY: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has organized a large rally in the country’s capital on Saturday to shore up her support following a month of political pushback and major protests.
The killing of Mayor Carlos Manzo in restive Michoacan state had sparked two days of demonstrations in November with protesters setting fire to public buildings.
Just weeks later, thousands marched through the streets of Mexico City to protest drug violence and the government’s security policies. That was followed by the abrupt departure of the country’s attorney general, Alejandro Gertz, in December over reported disagreements with Sheinbaum’s administration on crime policy.
Sheinbaum called for supporters to gather in the capital on the weekend in what analysts said was an attempt to demonstrate her support in the face of growing scrutiny.
“We close this 2025 with the historic celebration of seven years of transformation,” Sheinbaum said in a post on X.
Sheinbaum took office in 2024, following the six-year tenure of her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, with both leaders representing the left-wing Morena party.
“Let us together defend the people’s achievements ... in the Zocalo of Mexico City,” Sheinbaum added, referring to the capital’s main public square where weeks ago protesters criticizing her government’s security policies had clashed with police.
Though Sheinbaum has seen high approval ratings in her first year of power, they dipped slightly in recent months, easing from 74 percent in October to 71 percent at the start of December, according to the Polls MX survey summary.
- ‘Reshape the narrative’ -
Analysts told AFP the president not only faces scrutiny from her political opponents and members of the public, but from within her own party.
This gathering in the Zocalo, the country’s main square, is an “attempt at internal support, to reshape the narrative, to call for unity,” said political analyst Pablo Majluf.
Political columnist Hernan Gomez Bruera told AFP that Sheinbaum is “an incredibly efficient president” who likes to be in control and demands a lot from her team. But she is also “very thin-skinned” and “has difficulty dealing with dissent,” he added.
Despite a slight slip in poll numbers over the past few months, the leftist leader, who is Mexico’s first woman president, is still benefiting from a decline in poverty levels that began under her predecessor.
Sheinbaum has also won praise among her supporters for keeping at bay US President Donald Trump’s threats of high trade tariffs and military action on Mexican soil against drug cartels.
Sheinbaum met with Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Washington on Friday to discuss trade on the sidelines of the draw for the 2026 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by all three countries. She said on X following the meeting that the three nations maintain a “very good relationship.”
