It has been a bleak year for the United Nations, particularly in those U.N. agencies that serve the world’s most vulnerable people: refugees and migrants.
Amy Pope, the American director-general of the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, has overseen thousands of layoffs in her agency’s ranks since the Trump administration began gutting U.N. foreign assistance, including programs that assist a population of some 280 million people.
“It is not fun to have to downsize,” she told Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar at Devex Impact House on the sidelines of the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meeting in Washington.”There are real people who dedicated their entire career to our organization who suddenly found themselves without a job.”