Photo by Mathias Reding

The United Nations, in turning 80, has been berated, dismissed and libelled.  In September, US President Donald Trump took a hearty swipe at the body’s alleged impotence.  “What is the purpose of the United Nations?” he posed to gathered world leaders.  All it seemed to do was “write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It’s empty words and empty words don’t solve war.”  Never once did he consider that many of the wars he has allegedly ended have not so much reached their pacific terminus as having gone into simmering storage.

While harsh geopolitics has become violently fashionable and sneery of international law, an organisation whose existence depends on solidarity, support and cooperation from its often uncooperative Member States, is seeing itself slide into what has been described as a “worsening liquidity crisis.”  The crisis was given much stimulus by the organisation’s US$135 million deficit as it entered 2025.  By September’s end, it had collected a mockingly inadequate 66.2 per cent of the year’s assessments.

In October, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in speaking to the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly responsible for the entity’s budget, warned that the organisation was facing a “race to bankruptcy” unless Member States forked out their dues.  Last year, arrears totalled US$760 million.  With the need to return credits worth US$300 million to Member States at the start of 2026, some 10 per cent of the budget would be emptied.  “Any delays in collections early in the year [2026] will force us to reduce spending even more … and then potentially face the prospect of returning US$600 million in 2027, or about 20 per cent of the budget.”

While discussing finances can induce a coma, some preliminary discussion about the structure of contributions to the UN is necessary.  Assessed or mandatory contributions for 2025, measured by the “capacity to pay” formula, comprised the regular budget of the........

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