UN Reforms Include “Painful Staff Reductions”—and Forcible Return to Home Countries

@The United Nations Staff Union is the labor union representing New York Secretariat Staff, Locally Recruited Staff in the field, and Staff Members of UN Information Centers. Credit: United Nations

 

By Thalif Deen

 

The 193-member General Assembly, the UN’s highest policy-making body, will make the ultimate decision on the proposed UN restructuring, which will include staff cutbacks, merging or eliminating of departments and relocating UN agencies from high-cost to low-cost locations.

Perhaps one of the biggest single fears is that thousands of UN staffers, who are neither permanent residents nor US citizens, along with their families, will have to return to their home countries after living here for years– or for decades– because they lose their UN visa status.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on August 25 the Secretary-General will present a revised budget to the Fifth Committee in the coming weeks.

But he described the proposed cutbacks as “some painful staff reductions”.

Those that have been proposed, and will be proposed, to the General Assembly, and it will be Member States who will have to take those decisions, he pointed out.

Stephanie Hodge, a former staffer at UNDP (1994-1996 & 1999- 2004) and UNICEF (2008-2014), told IPS UN “reform” seems to mean chopping 20 percent across the board, as if leadership could be measured with a lawnmower.

“What really happens, of course, is that the bullies, sycophants, and kick-up, kiss-down survivors cling to their posts, while the technical staff — the ones who actually deliver — are the first out the door”.

The humiliation for staff is real, she pointed out.

Many spend months walking past the same UN offices where they once worked, waiting for a promised callback that never comes. And now, thousands in New York who aren’t U.S. citizens or permanent residents face an even harsher fate: pink slips, deportation papers, and decades of service dismissed in the name of “efficiency,” said Hodge.

“The irony is brutal: an institution founded to protect rights is now poised to trample on the rights of its own. Families uprooted, livelihoods erased, duty of care abandoned. This isn’t reform — it’s institutional hypocrisy, and it hollows out the very values the UN claims to stand for,” she argued.

The UN preaches “leave no one behind.” Apparently, that excludes its own, declared Hodge, an international evaluator and former UN advisor who has worked across 140 countries, and who writes on governance, multilateral reform, and climate equity.

A former UN staffer told IPS: “I know it would be almost inhumane to abruptly disrupt peoples’ lives midway in their careers and their children’s education, unless adequate compensation is provided to those affected. Well, we still don’t know what the UN is planning to do”.

Meanwhile, a new report from the World Health Organization says it anticipates losing 600 staff members at its headquarters in Geneva due to reductions in its budget for 2026-2027, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in a letter sent to staff, according to the media platform Devex.

“With a 21% reduction in the 2026–2027 budget, we are now realigning our structures with our core mandate,” Tedros wrote, outlining WHO’s ongoing restructuring in response to donor funding cuts.

“Some activities are being sunset, others are being scaled down, and those most directly linked to our mission are being maintained. At headquarters, based on the final approved structures, we anticipate approximately 600 separations,” he said.

Asked for her comments, Dr Purnima Mane, ex- President and CEO of Pathfinder International, and former Deputy Executive Director (Programme) and UN Assistant-Secretary-General (ASG) at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS UN reform has generally been seen as a welcome process to streamline its functioning and achieve its objectives more efficiently.

However, she pointed out, recognizing that UN reform needs to be aimed at serving the organization to meet its goals and achieve what is good for all its beneficiaries including its staff, the reform process becomes open to question when it occurs against the background of mainly financial constraints.

“Proposed organizational restructuring which is driven largely by the likelihood of reduced funding, runs the risk of sacrificing human considerations and those of impact on the broader goals of the UN”.

While the ultimate decision on the proposed restructuring lies with the General Assembly, she said, what we know so far, is that the proposed restructuring will include staff cutbacks
merging or elimination of some departments and relocation of agencies from high-cost to low-cost destinations.

Through its discussions, it has become apparent that the UN is considering the likelihood of early separation programs (voluntary separation by mutual agreement) which may appeal to some especially those close to retirement.

But the more drastic option is the merging or elimination of some departments (and perhaps even agencies) and potential relocation of agencies.

The last two options will pose major logistical challenges but in considering this decision, attention also needs to be paid to the problems which staff will face as a result.

Staff located in the US for example, who are neither citizens nor permanent residents and their families will find these changes difficult to navigate.

Not only would it interfere with the lives of the families of UN staff – some of whom have been located for years in the US – but it would also deny them major benefits in the years to come, including those most essential like health insurance and retirement packages which may often be insensitive to the increase in the cost of living in those countries over time, she said.

“Finding alternative employment with their immigration status will be even more difficult for the ex-employees especially in a generally tough job market. While severely handicapping the welfare of the staff and their families, these steps would also deprive the agency/ies of the skill sets which enable the UN to perform judiciously and expeditiously and meet its ultimate aims – all this at the cost potentially of the gains made and those to come.”

While the cutbacks are undoubtedly painful for the UN as a whole, they are the most painful directly to the staff and their families. However, often there is a sense that UN employees are “privileged” both financially and in other ways.

Against this background, some might not see employee welfare as even a minor consideration. Hopefully the members of the General Assembly will weigh the options carefully, bearing in mind both the human cost and the impact of these cutbacks on what the UN aims to achieve, she cautioned

“Getting the UN to focus on major structural changes and reduction of staff at the cost of staff morale particularly at a time when a uniting, well-functioning body is most needed by a volatile world could severely jeopardize what the UN has so far achieved and of course endanger what it aims to offer us in the years to come,” declared Dr Mane.

 

 

Source: IPS UN Bureau Report