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A sweeping cost-cutting push at the United Nations is stirring a bigger debate about what the institution should look like in a fractured world. The race to replace U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres could determine whether it charts a bolder course — or settles for a leaner status quo.
Also in today’s edition: A decision in the legal battle over the U.S. African Development Foundation.
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The United Nations has spent the past year tightening its belt. Through the UN80 initiative, the organization has cut roughly 20% of its administrative budget — moves that may help convince skeptical U.S. policymakers that it’s serious about tackling bureaucratic bloat.
But experts in a recent Devex Pro Briefing warn the cuts may shrink the U.N. without fixing what’s broken — all while Washington’s failure to pay its dues fuels a cash crisis that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres says risks an “imminent financial collapse.”
Critics say the reforms miss the bigger question: What the U.N. is actually for in a far messier world, writes Devex Senior Global Reporter Colum Lynch.
“I don’t think the ambition was how to better prepare the U.N. to confront challenges of the future,” said Heba Aly, the director of the Article 109 coalition. “It was really a cost-cutting exercise, and because of the lack of vision as part of the process I think the risk is … that you end up with a U.N. that’s 20% smaller and still trying to do the same thing.” The result, she added, could be a U.N. that is “less effective, and therefore continues to lose relevance.”
Meanwhile, the race to replace Guterres — who steps down at the end of the year — could reshape the institution’s future. Jane Kinninmont, CEO at the United Nations Association-UK, called the leadership change “a major opportunity to reset” the organization’s priorities.
But Daniel Forti, the head of U.N. affairs at the International Crisis Group, warned that candidates may take the easier route — promising capitals a safer, quieter U.N. rather than a more ambitious one.
“If the U.N. gives in to this approach, why wouldn’t other powerful member states try and adopt the same practice of withholding funding unless they're getting their way?” he said.
Watch the briefing: The future of the UN? Fuzzy (Pro)
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The race for the next U.N. secretary-general is underway — and according to Qahir Dhanani and Jim Larson of the Boston Consulting Group, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
In an opinion piece for Devex, they argue that the next leader will take office amid geopolitical turmoil, climate risk, and eroding trust in global institutions. Yet they also point out that multilateralism has quietly delivered enormous gains — from global health coordination to aviation safety standards and digital interoperability — that form the “invisible infrastructure” of modern life.
The real task now, they argue, is not defending the U.N.’s past but redesigning its future.
That means rebuilding trust through transparency and clear communication, driving long-delayed institutional reforms, and modernizing how the U.N. actually works — including embracing digital tools and artificial intelligence. It also means shaping what comes after the Sustainable Development Goals, and strengthening cooperation on global public goods such as pandemic preparedness, AI governance, biodiversity, and food and water security.
Above all, they write, the next secretary-general must refocus the institution on its core purpose: peace and human dignity.
In short, the moment calls for more than a custodian. The world, they argue, needs a leader capable of rebuilding trust, navigating geopolitical fragmentation, and “building the next era of multilateralism.”
Opinion: The next UN chief must architect a new era of multilateralism
After a year of legal whiplash, a federal judge has stopped the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle the U.S. African Development Foundation, the tiny congressionally created agency that backs African small businesses.
The battle began in February 2025 when U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the agency to be “eliminated to the maximum extent” possible by law and installed Peter Marocco — the former State Department official who oversaw the dismantling of USAID — to take control. What followed was a messy saga of terminated staff, canceled grants, and dueling lawsuits, with employees fired, reinstated, and fired again.
“I cried when the decision came out,” said a person with knowledge of the case, who agreed to speak with Devex on the condition of anonymity. “I know we’re not out of the storm yet. But I feel like USADF is done with Marocco, for the most part.”
The turmoil deepened when USADF’s former director of financial management, Mathieu Zahui, pleaded guilty in January to accepting gratuities from a contractor and lying to federal law enforcement officers. But even before this, Marocco has locked staff out of offices and Treasury systems, my colleague Elissa Miolene writes.
“In all, USADF is once again effectively shut down,” wrote Elisabeth Feleke, chief program officer of USADF, in a court filing in December of 2025. Marocco also blasted the agency publicly. “A culture of defiant fraud, waste and abuse that must come to an end,” Morocco wrote on Jan. 30. “This is only scratching the surface. Abolish it!”
Now the court has barred Marocco from acting as board member or president and blocked officials from enforcing his directives. After months locked out, USADF staff are expected to return to their offices — though after a year of turmoil, the agency’s recovery may only be beginning.
Read: US African Development Foundation wins case against Trump admin
After suffering a diplomatic defeat at the world’s largest gathering on gender, the U.S. has come to the U.N. with a new proposal for the conference’s political declaration: an amendment to protect women and girls “through appropriate terminology.”
It’s a continuation of what American officials have spent much of their time pursuing at the Commission on the Status of Women — pushing for measures that codify the definition of a woman, and promote the Trump administration’s views on “gender ideology,” a term commonly used by conservative groups to criticize policies related to gender identity and transgender rights.
“President Trump has said: no matter how many surgeries you have or chemicals you inject, if you’re born with male DNA in every cell of your body, you can never become a woman,” said Bethany Kozma, director of global affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She was speaking at the Conference on the State of Women and Family, a two-day event that ran parallel to CSW and was hosted by the U.S., anti-abortion groups, and conservative think tanks. “The United States is working to put the monstrous ways of the past administration to rest.”
The U.S. offered up the resolution after its attempts to alter the CSW political declaration — which was formally adopted on the first day of the gathering — failed. Four days later, it introduced the amendment that seeks to define gender at the U.N. It will be considered by the commission on Thursday, Elissa writes.
ICYMI: UN diplomats revel in US setback at women’s rights forum
Read a recap of CSW: A tale of two movements — all at the same time
Climate advocates are turning up the heat on development banks. A coalition of civil society groups has written to four major multilateral development banks, citing a new legal opinion arguing that MDBs — and their shareholder governments — could be breaching international law if they keep financing fossil fuel projects.
The opinion, written by scholars Johanna Aleria P. Lorenzo and Jolene Lin, follows a landmark July 2025 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice affirming that states have a legal duty to protect the climate system from greenhouse gas emissions.
“[The opinion] is the first to address the legal obligations of multilateral development banks and their member states to act on climate change,” Jason Weiner, the executive director and legal director of Bank Climate Advocates, which commissioned the legal work, tells Devex. “We see this as a watershed moment for climate ambition at MDBs.”
The letters — sent March 3 to the European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and African Development Bank — warn the banks of “stringent” climate obligations under international law.
Read: Legal opinion warns development banks may violate climate law
A new U.N. report reveals that in 2024, 4.9 million children under 5 died from largely preventable causes, indicating that the decline in child mortality rates was already slowing, even before the global aid budget cuts last year. [Reuters]
The World Food Programme warns that 45 million more people could face acute hunger if the Iran conflict continues through mid-2026, as disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea drive up energy and food costs. [Bloomberg]
Escalating conflicts in Africa are being ignored, just as the funding to address them is drying up. The International Committee of the Red Cross' Africa director warns that pending aid cuts will further hollow out the continent’s already fragile support networks. [The Independent]
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