By Javier Surasky
The Summit of the Future is presented as an opportunity to strengthen multilateralism with the United Nations at its center. However, without a more solid and predictable financial base, it is difficult to imagine a UN with the real capacity to respond effectively to global challenges.
The UN has
long been lacking in funding. Despite its Member States' promises and constant
calls for more effective action, the financial contributions necessary for
strong multilateral action have not materialized.
Let us
begin by illustrating the general reality of financing the world’s most
important multilateral organization, whose mission includes maintaining
international peace and security and conducting international cooperation
(Article 1 of the United Nations Charter, paragraphs 1 and 3).
For the
2024 period, the UN had an allocated regular budget of USD 3.59 billion
(A/RES/78/254 A–C). How does this amount compare with the regular budgets of
other entities?
Figure 1: Comparison between budgets (in USD billion)
(1) Informe
Económico Real Madrid 2022/2023.
(2) A/RES/78/254
A–C
(3) France
24.
(4) New York City Council.
(5) Payments alone, the commitments that are added to them, have a value of Eur. 189.4 billion. European Council.
Source: Own
If we
consider only the United Nations development system, the latest available
figures indicate that the sum of contributions from the UN's regular budget and
extrabudgetary contributions significantly increases the availability of funds,
which reached a value of USD 54.5 billion in 2022 (the last year for which we
have official data).
However, a
part of the explanation for why Member States prefer to provide funds outside
of the organization’s budget lies in earmarked funds. Most of these funds are
earmarked, meaning the donor specifies the country or actions that will benefit
from them, impeding the UN’s decision on how to allocate the earmarked
resources according to real needs.
The states’
preference for earmarked funds is easy to explain: it allows them to align the
resources they put in the hands of the UN with their own foreign policy
priorities. Let's look at the evolution of the resources contributed as core funding and non-core funding between 2012 and 2022.
Figure 2: Evolution of core and non-core resources made available to the United Nations development system (2012-2022, in USD billion)
Moreover,
the result of increasing humanitarian needs and the allocation of earmarked
funds to the UN development system has, in 2022, shifted the priority from
development assistance to humanitarian action. In other words, the focus has
moved to emergency response over the promotion of structural changes for
greater sustainable development. Addressing emergencies thus becomes a new
limit to the more efficient use of available financing.
Figure 3: Trends in financing thematic funds of specific organizations according to whether they are directed towards humanitarian or development actions (2012–2022, USD million in real terms)
As a
result, in the words of the Secretary-General, "the current funding
architecture of the United Nations development system, characterized by the
continuous decline in the proportion of core resources in total financing, the
lack of predictability, and the high dependency on a small number of donor
governments, is not sustainable for a system that needs to expand its work and
have an integrated and strategic impact."
Under this
financing scheme, the Summit of the Future will not have the opportunity to bring about changes towards a stronger
multilateralism with the UN at its center. The heavily intergovernmental
negotiation framework, with the almost total exclusion of other actors, does
not help envision a more effective multilateralism either. Nevertheless, that
is a topic for future blog entries in our Global Radar.
Update
For newer ODA figures, read the April 2026 post "How Falling Development Aid Could Widen the Digital Divide".