The UN secretary-general’s UN80 initiative was initially intended to mark and celebrate the UN’s 80th anniversary but quickly became the moniker for UN reform. Much has been written about the initiative, and the UN publishes regular updates on its website. Of UN80’s three workstreams—efficiencies in the UN Secretariat, the mandate implementation review, and structural changes and programmatic realignment—Workstream 3 is the least settled. If UN80 is to deliver meaningful reforms, it requires member states to become more proactively engaged in advancing Workstream 3 and to dedicate more human resources to the effort.

The secretary-general’s September 2025 “Shifting Paradigms” report on Workstream 3 emphasizes the need for improved coordination and collaboration, better use of technology, and sharing of operational support services, all of which have been proposed (and required) before. The secretary-general’s own 2017 reports on reforming the UN development system and several subsequent reports provide many of the same recommendations.[1]

This raises the question: Why haven’t these reforms already been implemented? In my own experience—and from discussions with other resident coordinators and humanitarian coordinators, staff of UN agencies, funds, and programs, and donors—there are several key reasons. These include the failure to fund UN entities in accordance with their mandates and comparative advantages; the tendency to provide funding and make decisions in silos; tensions between localization and risk management; the absence of professionalized, full-time boards for agencies, funds, and programs; and the inevitable bureaucratic impediments.

Tackling these issues requires going beyond broad action points like “strengthen resident coordinators” and “reduce overlap.” It requires concrete actions with set timelines. In an ideal world, these actions would be part of an overarching vision of where the UN system is headed. But this ideal must be weighed against the risk of losing momentum. Given the daunting nature of UN80, member states should proceed with examining what bold, bite-size steps they can take ahead of or alongside the development of a longer-term, more comprehensive strategy. Work on these steps could be led by a representative working group authorized by the UN General Assembly. Member-state action is particularly critical to change the way the UN is funded, governed, and structured, both at headquarters and in the field.

Funding Reform

History has demonstrated that despite requirements and guidance, there has been insufficient progress on improving cooperation and integration within the UN.[2] This lack of integration is often blamed, at least in part, on competition for funding among UN agencies, funds, and programs. Less often discussed is how donor behavior exacerbates this competition.

Donors regularly fund UN entities to implement projects beyond their comparative advantage because of “preferred partnerships” or global agreements that allow them to “get the money out the door,” especially at the end of a fiscal year. This practice fosters competition among UN entities and leads to mission creep, with UN entities often issuing appeals independent of—and before the issuance of—UN sustainable development cooperation frameworks and humanitarian response plans.

For example, UN entities such as UNICEF and the UN Development Program (UNDP) continue to receive funding for infrastructure projects even though the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has the comparative advantage and mandate. Similarly, UNDP was given funding for the COVID-19 response in some countries even though UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) had the lead role and greater in-country expertise. Donors must begin to support UN entities solely on the basis of their comparative advantage, not for contractual ease.

UN entities also regularly perform duplicative functions that require additional resources. The UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) Refugee Coordination Model established a parallel coordination system to that of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), requiring additional resources to support the two. Agencies also continue to publish their own data in addition to that of the resident coordinator’s office, again requiring duplicative resources.

Competition among UN entities is compounded by the siloed way member states fund and make decisions. Member states have long been calling for the UN to bridge silos by implementing the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. Yet member states’ own funding, structures, and mindsets remain siloed. For example, member states regularly cannot fund humanitarian projects because there is too much overlap with development, and vice versa. If they still want the nexus approach to succeed, member states need to allow for “nexus funding.”

Member states’ approaches to funding also inhibit their commitment to funding local and national NGOs directly. While the disbursement of funding to local and national NGOs through OCHA country-based pooled funds increased from 17% in 2015 to 45% in 2025, bilateral funding from member states to local and national NGOs remains less than 4%—well below the 25% target agreed in the 2016 Grand Bargain. This trend continued—and was exacerbated—when the US contributed $2 billion of humanitarian funding to OCHA in 2026 but restricted its use to specific countries and largely to UN agencies as implementing partners. Other member states’ legislative bodies, government departments, domestic constituencies, and even NGOs themselves have also been reluctant to implement this commitment, in part due to concerns over aid diversion.

These concerns can lead to documentation requirements that exclude local and national NGOs from the outset. One national NGO reported a requirement to submit five years of audited statements even though it had only been operational for three years. Another flagged that it was required to have a chief financial officer in all its locations even though one financial officer could do the job. While member states have legitimate concerns around managing risk and ensuring accountability to their legislative branches and taxpayers, they must recognize that many local actors cannot meet such requirements. Recent guidance from OCHA could help member states review their current procedures.

Member states’ growing use of earmarked funding has also been a barrier to UN reform. Earmarked funding has been found to make UN entities less effective and to reduce host-country ownership. Despite commitments in the 2012 Transformative Agenda, 2016 Grand Bargain, and 2025 Humanitarian Reset, only approximately 20 donors provide the majority of unearmarked funding, and even they do not do so consistently. The overall proportion of unearmarked funding has declined recently, dropping to around 17% of total pledges in 2026. Member states cite the need to direct their funding in accordance with their own agendas and to give themselves “visibility.” Yet this practice by member states conflicts with their request that implementing partners focus less on visibility and reduce competition.

Structural Reforms at Headquarters

Funding reform alone will not suffice if the UN Agencies, funds, and programs’ underlying organizational architecture remains unchanged. Several structural changes are needed, some of which member states have long acknowledged but have been reluctant to act on.

Before meaningful efficiencies and effectiveness can be achieved, and as highlighted in the “Shifting Paradigms” report, UN agencies, funds, and programs with overlapping and parallel mandates need to be merged. This would allow them to focus on substantive work rather than on competing for contracts from donors. Even so, the proposed mergers of UNDP and UNOPS and of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Women, as well as the “sunsetting” of UNAIDS, are facing challenges.

In March 2026, a data-driven assessment of the potential opportunities and risks surrounding a merger of UNDP and UNOPS submitted to the Executive Board found that the two entities operate with different models, organizational cultures, and historical mandates, raising questions as to the value of a merger. Concerns expressed included that a merger could lead to UNOPS’s operational role overshadowing UNDP’s normative role and could disrupt current projects and UNOPS’s agility to deploy. It also found that it would be difficult to reconcile UNDP’s $12.2 billion in net assets with UNOPS’s $375 million in net equity. Nonetheless, initial surveys presented to the Executive Board noted that 53% of surveyed partners viewed a merger as beneficial. Ongoing assessments and joint evidence-based reports are being reviewed to determine the best path forward.

Similarly, in April 2026, the UN finalized a strategic assessment of the proposed merger of UNFPA and UN Women, concluding that the merger is the best available option. However, some member states, particularly Western states, along with many civil society organizations, have cited insufficient evidence of efficiency gains and raised concerns that the merger could dilute both agencies’ normative mandates on reproductive health and gender equality. It does seem, however, that safeguards could be put in place to avoid such a dilution.

The “Shifting Paradigms” report also recommended “sunsetting” UNAIDS. The agency has already undergone a 55% reduction in secretariat staffing (from 661 to 294 staff) and a consolidation of its field presence from 85 to 54 countries, with a lighter footprint in 40 countries. In the second phase, UNAIDS’s board will consider a plan for further transformation in June 2027, including possible consolidation and integration with other entities (for example, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention), with a view to eventually closing the UNAIDS secretariat.

In general, however, UN80 has not been particularly ambitious when it comes to mergers, with mergers of entities such as the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNHCR and International Organization for Migration (IOM), and UN Departments of Peace Operations (DPO) and Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) left off the table. When the issue of mergers is raised, UN leadership and staff in the affected entities tend to comment on its impossibility due to the incompatibility of existing financial or governance systems. Member states, for their part, have their own agendas and may be reluctant to lose their representation on the boards of UN entities. But many member states have representation on the boards of two entities that could be merged.[3] Those member states in particular should examine how a merger could align with their interests. This issue cannot be left to the UN entities themselves, which have conflicts of interest in merging.

Linked to the issue of mergers, agencies, funds, and programs lack “professionalized” boards with dedicated resources. This has led to irregular oversight of their activities and rubber stamping of programs that may or may not be in accordance with their mandate. Boards should review their own composition, including criteria for membership—looking beyond funding to also consider engagement on oversight and reform. They should also consider how they can be professionalized to guide potential mergers and enhance efficiency and effectiveness. For example, they could shift toward the World Bank model, with biweekly meetings and dedicated human resources.

Reconfiguration of the UN’s Field Presence

The UN also needs to reconsider its presence of UN country teams at the field level. Many member states rightly refuse to abandon the UN’s support to least developed and low-income-countries. In these contexts, a large operational footprint for the UN may have significant added value. Yet the need for large, operational UN country teams in middle-income countries without ongoing emergencies should be questioned. In these contexts, the UN’s added value may lie mainly in its convening authority or norm-setting role. General Assembly Resolution 72/279 (2018) requires the resident coordinator, together with the host government, to ensure the configuration of each country team is “needs-based.” This makes sense. But to achieve this goal, member states should only fund an operational presence for the UN entities needed to implement the UN sustainable development cooperation framework in each country. The most effective way to do this—and to simultaneously avoid earmarking—is to shift toward in-country multi-donor trust funds.

Member states also need to provide more political backing for resident coordinators and humanitarian coordinators. While member states have repeatedly recommended strengthening the role of resident and humanitarian coordinators since the 2017 development system reforms, they are usually referring to their role within the UN system. But it is equally important to strengthen their role externally. In numerous recent instances, UN staff have been declared persona non grata or had their visas denied by host states because of their nationality, advocacy work, or work history, usually in the human rights or humanitarian spheres. For example, the government of Burkina Faso recently declared two successive resident coordinators persona non grata, the second in 2025. The government of Israel has declined to renew the visas of the previous two heads of OCHA in Palestine; has not given or renewed the visas of many high-level staff, including international staff with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) since 2021; and declared the secretary-general himself persona non grata in 2024. If one of the UN’s comparative advantages is its normative work, this practice needs to be reversed.

There is also a need for greater integration between UN country teams and UN peace operations. The time for the so-called “Christmas tree” mandates given to large, multidimensional UN peacekeeping operations after the Cold War has come to an end. But that does not mean the end of their initiatives that go beyond peacekeeping, including those related to institution building, development, good governance, human rights, and quick-impact projects. Some of these activities are already being undertaken in parallel by UN country teams, which could assume full responsibility and leave missions to engage in core peacekeeping or political work. The Security Council and General Assembly should approve mandates for peace operations based only on essential peacekeeping needs; for other initiatives, member states should provide funding only to UN agencies, funds, and programs or other relevant entities.

What Member States Should Do Now

These are all areas where member states need to take the lead. The UN General Assembly has recognized the central role of member states in the reform process, but it has not articulated that role. The General Assembly should establish a working group for Workstream 3 of UN80, similar to the Informal Ad Hoc Working Group for Workstream 2 on the mandate review. This working group could be comprised of the 21 vice-presidents of the General Assembly or their representatives, which would ensure balanced geographic representation. It could be supported by a small advisory team of former UN staff and others with knowledge of the broader UN system, including representatives of the private sector, academia, and civil society who have no conflict of interest in making recommendations on reforms.

Rather than waiting for a “vision” or for the Secretariat and agencies, funds, and programs to do more, it is time for member states  to tackle these challenges on their own. This is particularly critical ahead of the appointment of a new secretary-general, who will benefit from consolidated recommendations that go beyond budget cuts and stem from member states themselves.

[1] These include reports by the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, the UN Policy on Integrated Assessment and Planning, and the work of the Business Innovations Group.

[2] In 2025, only around 40% of UN entities had strategic plans, and only 30 percent had integrated results and resource frameworks.

[3] In 2025, for example, WFP and FAO had the following member states in common on their boards: Africa: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Morocco, Sudan, and Uganda; Asia-Pacific: China, India, Japan, Kuwait, Qatar, Republic of Korea, and Saudi Arabia; Latin America and Caribbean: Brazil, Mexico, and Panama; Western Europe and Others Group: Canada, France, Norway, and the United States.