The United Nations has proposed cutting 20% of the secretariat’s 33,000-strong workforce, as it faces the prospect of unprecedented funding cuts from the organization’s largest financial contributor: the United States. But the U.N.’s second-largest financial contributor, China, has been stepping up demands for more jobs, at least for Chinese nationals.
In recent months, Chinese diplomats have demanded the U.N. find more jobs, at least for its own nationals, and consider shrinking the American workforce at the U.N. to reflect its dwindling financial contributions to the world body, according to several U.N. officials and diplomats. Any job cuts undertaken in response to the withdrawal of U.S. funding should fall heaviest on American nationals, China has argued.
“They are approaching about senior posts,” one U.N. staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Devex in a phone interview. “And they have been quite candid about saying ‘we are the second largest contributor and we pay our bills in full and on time.’” China does pay its bills in full, but it has recently begun a practice of paying late in the year, contributing to the U.N. cash crisis. “For what it’s worth,” the official added, “they are not doing much different from what other states do, but they are more overt about it. They don’t really dance around about stuff like this.”