United Nations: The UN humanitarian agency said it is cutting its 2,600 staff operating in more than 60 countries by 20% because of “brutal cuts” in funding that have left it with a nearly $60 million shortfall.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press that “the humanitarian community was already underfunded, overstretched and literally, under attack” before the recent funding cuts.
In his letter to the agency's staff, he refrained from naming the country responsible for the funding cuts that triggered the financial crisis at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). However, he hinted at the United States.
Fletcher revealed that OCHA's total budget for 2025 stands at approximately $430 million. He pointed out that multiple countries had announced or carried out reductions in their contributions to the agency's extra-budgetary resources, specifically singling out the United States.
“The US alone has been the largest humanitarian donor for decades,” he said, and the biggest contributor to OCHA's extra-budgetary resources, paying about 20% — which amounts to $63 million for 2025. He did not say whether the US had cut that amount.
President Donald Trump has dismantled the US Agency for International Development, which was responsible for humanitarian aid, and has drastically curtailed funding that has kept millions of people alive around the world.
“To date, with projected cash outflows totalling $258.5 million, we find ourselves with a funding gap of almost $58 million,” Fletcher said in the letter.
As humanitarian needs continue to rise, he noted that OCHA is already experiencing the impact of funding cuts on access to “life-saving support”. He highlighted that humanitarian organisations partnering with the UN have been severely affected, with local groups “bearing the brunt", followed by international organisations and UN humanitarian agencies.
Fletcher emphasised the need for OCHA to align its operations with available resources by reducing bureaucracy and becoming “less top heavy”. This restructuring will involve “substantially reducing” senior positions at UN headquarters and in certain regions and countries.
He stated that OCHA would scale back its presence and operations in Cameroon, Colombia, Eritrea, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Gaziantep (in Turkey), and Zimbabwe.
(inputs from PTI)