Reuters: UN peacekeeping missions to be cut by 25% due to financial crisis

The United Nations will reduce its peacekeeping contingent in nine operations around the world by a quarter due to lack of funds. This is reported by Reuters with reference to unnamed senior UN officials.

"In general, we will have to repatriate... about 25% of our peacekeeping troops and police, their equipment, as well as a large number of civilian personnel in the missions," said an unnamed senior UN official.

He explained that we are talking about 13,000-14,000 military and police officers.

According to a second unnamed UN official, they are forced to take this step because of a lack of funds, as the organization receives 26% of its funding from the United States, which currently has a debt of about $2.8 billion in its obligations.

In August, US President Donald Trump canceled about $800 million in funding for peacekeeping operations allocated for 2024 and 2025, and the White House Budget Office also proposed to stop funding UN peacekeeping missions due to the failures of operations in Mali, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to Reuters, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is looking for solutions to improve the organization's efficiency and how to reduce costs.

• on April 25, the UN reduced support for Ukrainian IDPs due to the suspension of US funding and a general reduction in donor assistance.
• On September 20, it became known that the UN plans to close the AIDS program due to lack of US funding.