By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA, Feb 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. will keep pressuring the United Nations to reform after withdrawing from dozens of U.N. agencies and cutting millions of dollars in funding last year, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. said on Wednesday.
Ambassador Mike Waltz also reiterated that a down payment from Washington to the global organisation would come within weeks.
The U.S. is the biggest contributor to the U.N. budget, but under the administration of President Donald Trump it has refused to make mandatory payments to the U.N.’s regular and peacekeeping budgets, and slashed voluntary funding to U.N. agencies with their own budgets.
U.N. officials say the U.S. owed $2.19 billion to the regular U.N. budget as of the start of February, more than 95% of the total owed by countries globally. The U.S. also owes another $2.4 billion for current and past peacekeeping missions and $43.6 million for U.N. tribunals.
Waltz, speaking in Geneva, did not detail how much the U.N. would receive, but said the U.S. will pay its dues while also pressing the organisation for reforms.
“We’re going to continue sustained pressure on demanding efficiency. We’re going to continue to ask these agencies to do at least the same amount, if not more, with less,” he told reporters.
“We’re going to pay those dues and we’re going to continue to demand reforms. We’re off to a good start,” Waltz said, in relation to the launch of U.N. reforms that led to a 20% cut in the U.N. Secretariat’s regular budget, through measures that included slashing thousands of jobs, freezing hiring and limiting staff travel.
Waltz is on a two-day visit to Geneva to meet officials from a number of U.N. agencies, including the refugee agency, UNHCR, which faces the most severe budget cuts in its history.
In January, Trump announced a U.S. withdrawal from dozens of international organisations and U.N. entities, saying they operated contrary to U.S. national interests. The U.S. formally left the WHO the same month.
Waltz said the U.N. needed to take cost-saving measures, including embracing remote work and using AI for translation, as well as relocating staff away from the U.N. headquarters in two of the world’s most expensive cities – New York and Geneva.
Some U.N. agencies, like UNICEF, have announced relocations of thousands of their staff to cheaper locations.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Nia Williams)
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