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How the U.S. Invests in a Better World

As the world’s largest economy, the United States has long provided essential financial support to the UN that enables the institution to operate, respond to crises and advance American interests. Since the UN’s founding, U.S. contributions have helped shape a more stable, secure and prosperous world.

UN funding is a shared responsibility among Member States, but not all contributions serve the same purpose. Broadly, funding falls into two categories: assessed and voluntary contributions – each playing a distinct and complementary role.

Assessed contributions are mandatory payments required under the UN Charter. They function like membership dues, providing a predictable funding stream for the UN’s core operations. These funds support the regular and peacekeeping budgets as well as assessed budgets for specialized agencies.

Voluntary contributions, by contrast, are directed at the discretion of governments. These flexible funds power the UN’s humanitarian and development work, supporting agencies like the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and World Food Programme (WFP). Without them, many of the UN’s most visible and lifesaving programs would not exist.

Together, these funding streams allow the United States to sustain the UN’s core functions while directing resources toward priority challenges.

Regular Budget

The UN’s regular budget funds core operations that directly advance U.S. national security and foreign policy priorities.

This includes special political missions that help stabilize fragile regions, address human rights abuses and support governance reforms in countries like Haiti, Colombia and Somalia. It also supports the monitoring and enforcement of UN Security Council sanctions – targeting terrorist networks like al-Qaeda and ISIS and rogue states like North Korea.

The regular budget also enables frontline efforts to counter transnational threats. Through entities such as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the UN helps combat fentanyl trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism and organized crime – challenges that increasingly affect communities across the United States.

Peacekeeping Budget

The UN’s peacekeeping budget funds operations in many of the world’s most volatile regions, deploying more than 66,000 personnel across three continents.

Authorized by the Security Council, these missions protect civilians, stabilize conflict zones, support democratic elections and help prevent the resurgence of violence.

For the United States, peacekeeping is a force multiplier. It allows Washington to advance stability without deploying U.S. troops – sharing costs and responsibilities with international partners while reducing the likelihood of more expensive military interventions down the line.

Peacekeeping funding also supports regional partners, including African Union forces combating extremism in Somalia and the U.S.-sponsored multinational Gang Suppression Force working to restore order in Haiti.

Learn How the Budget is Calculated

Why not just fund the UN à la carte?

Great question.

Not only did the U.S. join the UN under a system of assessed contributions — it helped design it. That means countries are required to pay their share, not just contribute when they feel like it. And there’s a practical reason for that: large, complex operations need reliable, predictable funding. If everything were voluntary, key UN programs — including humanitarian aid and global health efforts — would face constant shortfalls. We already see this today, where voluntary programs are routinely underfunded. That kind of instability would create a bigger problem for the U.S., not a smaller one. To keep essential programs running, Washington would likely be asked to contribute more, not less. Assessed funding also ensures meaningful burden-sharing. Other countries are obligated to pay their share, instead of relying on a few donors to carry the load.

In short, predictable funding keeps operations running smoothly and spreads costs more fairly.

Understanding U.S. Funding

As the UN’s largest financial contributor, the United States has long wielded unmatched influence within the system. Congress has historically recognized the return on that investment: even with a 25 percent cap on peacekeeping contributions since FY2017 — accruing into more than $1.5 billion in arrears through FY2025 — appropriations have generally ensured the U.S. meets most of its UN obligations.

However, in June 2025, the Administration rescinded more than $9 billion in previously appropriated funding for foreign assistance and public broadcasting. Congress approved the package, which clawed back nearly $1 billion for the UN – including funding for Contributions to International Organizations (CIO), Contributions for International Peacekeeping Activities (CIPA) and International Organizations and Programs (IO&P).

One month later, the White House attempted to cancel an additional $5 billion in foreign assistance through a controversial “pocket rescission” – sidestepping Congress and targeting another $1 billion in funding for core accounts, including $520.5 million in FY2025 CIO funding, $392.5 million in FY2025 funding for CIPA and $444.9 million in FY2024 and FY2025 funding for PKO.

These actions cut FY2025 funding by roughly 45 percent for CIO and CIPA, 80 percent for PKO and eliminated IO&P entirely.

The UN’s Cash Crisis

The impact was immediate. For the first time in years, the United States failed to make contributions to the UN regular budget in calendar year 2025, with unpaid assessments climbing to nearly $2.2 billion.

In response, Secretary-General António Guterres implemented emergency cost-cutting measures and warned of a potential “collapse of the regular functioning” of the UN – even raising the prospect of a “race to bankruptcy.”

On the peacekeeping side, the rescissions packages forced the UN to pull back significantly by instituting a 15 percent cut to its 2025-2026 budget and a 25 percent reduction in troop levels. Meanwhile, the loss of IO&P funding undermined the finances of a range of UN agencies and programs, including UNICEF.

In total, the United States moved to cancel roughly $2 billion in assessed and voluntary funding in 2025 – helping trigger one of the most severe financial crises in the UN’s history.

As of FY2027, here is where the U.S. stands.

FY2027 Budget

Dollar amounts in this table are listed in thousands. FY2024 Omnibus and FY2025 Full-Year CR
amounts do not reflect funds subject to rescission in 2025.

HOW CONGRESS ALLOCATES FUNDING

Since the UN’s establishment in 1945, the U.S. has been its largest financial contributor. U.S. funding for the UN is determined through the annual appropriations process in Congress, as part of legislation that funds the State Department and other international affairs agencies in the U.S. government. Funding for many of the UN’s core activities and programs comes out of four accounts that are administered by the State Department.

  • Contributions to International Organizations (CIO)

    CIO funds U.S. assessments for the UN regular budget, UN specialized agencies and several dozen non-UN international organizations like NATO, the Organization for American States and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, among others.

  • Contributions for International Peacekeeping Activities (CIPA)

    CIPA funds U.S. assessments for nine current UN peacekeeping operations, including missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Lebanon.

  • Peacekeeping Operations (PKO)

    PKO funds a number of non-UN regional peacekeeping and bilateral security assistance initiatives.

    Historically, PKO has also included assessed funding for the UN Support Office in Somalia, an entity that provides critical equipment and logistical support to African Union forces working to stabilize the country.

    PKO is also a potential source of funding to pay U.S. assessments for the UN Support Office in Haiti, which will provide similar support to the Gang Suppression Force in Haiti authorized by the Security Council in 2025.

  • International Organizations and Programs (IO&P)

    IO&P provides voluntary contributions to a number of UN agencies and programs, including UNICEF, UNDP, the UNEP, UNFPA, UN Women and the UN Human Rights Office.

    Because funding in this account is not earmarked for specific activities, it provides flexible funding that allows recipient agencies to both respond quickly to emergencies and carry out longer-term essential functions.

Historic UN Reforms 

Reform at the United Nations is well underway, with measurable cost savings, structural changes and stronger accountability mechanisms taking shape across the system.

Under Secretary-General António Guterres, the UN80 Initiative is driving a broad push to streamline operations, align mandates with current global needs and reduce overhead. While some reforms require Member State approval, significant steps have already been implemented. In 2025, proposals called for deep budget cuts, workforce reductions, consolidation of administrative functions into lower-cost global hubs and expanded automation.

Those efforts translated into concrete outcomes. On December 30, 2025, the General Assembly approved a $3.45 billion regular budget for 2026 — $270 million below the previous year — while eliminating 2,900 posts, a nearly 20 percent staffing reduction. The package also launched a review of staff compensation and steps to modernize the UN pension system to curb long-term costs.

The U.S. played a direct role in shaping these reforms, securing provisions that strengthen oversight by the Office of Internal Oversight Services, prioritizing investigations into waste, fraud and abuse with the greatest potential for accountability and financial recovery.

Peacekeeping has followed a similar trajectory. The 2025-26 peacekeeping budget dropped to $5.38 billion — $210 million less than the prior year — and reflects a longer-term decline from $8.3 billion a decade ago, a nearly 35 percent reduction. Efficiency reforms, including the Global Field Support Strategy, helped cut per-peacekeeper costs by 18 percent and reduce thousands of support personnel. Combined with a drop in the U.S. assessment rate — from 28.4 percent in 2015 to 26.1 percent in 2026 — these changes have lowered the cost to American taxpayers by roughly $1 billion over the past decade.

Reform extends beyond budgets. The UN has strengthened safeguards against sexual exploitation and abuse, including faster investigations, greater transparency, expanded victim support and stronger enforcement authorities under Security Council Resolution 2272. It has also introduced more rigorous performance tracking through systems like the Comprehensive Planning and Performance Assessment System, which has generated tens of thousands of data points to guide mission effectiveness and inform Security Council decisions.

At the country level, reforms to the Resident Coordinator system have improved accountability and coordination across development, humanitarian and security efforts — ensuring the UN delivers assistance more efficiently and without duplication.

Taken together, these changes reflect a sustained, system-wide effort to make the UN leaner, more accountable and better aligned with both U.S. priorities and global demands.

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OCHA

Investing in Local Partners

The UN has made steady progress over the past decade in shifting more aid to local partners, called localization. That means giving governments and community-based organizations greater ownership over how assistance is delivered. Funding from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has moved in that direction: the share going to local NGOs increased from 23 percent in 2016 to 34 percent in 2021. By 2024, nearly 45 percent of OCHA funding was directed to local partners — almost double the global benchmark set at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit.