UN overhaul amid funding crisis

THE UN is considering a massive overhaul that would merge major departments and shift resources across the globe, according to an internal memo prepared by senior officials tasked with reforming the world body.

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The high-level review comes as UN agencies scramble to cope with the fallout from US foreign aid cuts under US President Donald Trump that have gutted humanitarian agencies.

The six-page document, marked “strictly confidential” and reviewed by Reuters, contains a list of what it terms “suggestions” that would consolidate dozens of UN agencies into four primary departments — peace and security, humanitarian affairs, sustainable development and human rights.

Under one option, for example, operational aspects of the World Food Programme, the UN children’s agency, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN refugee agency would be merged into a single humanitarian entity, it said.

The memo contains a range of suggestions, some large, some small, some speculative, which, if all adopted, would represent the most sweeping reforms in decades.

It suggests merging the UN Aids agency into the WHO, and reducing the need for up to six translators at meetings. Another suggestion proposes merging the World Trade Organization - which is not a UN entity - with UN development agencies.

One official familiar with the memo called it a starting point.