The money is a small fraction of what the U.S. has contributed in the past but reflects what the administration believes is a generous amount that will maintain the United States’ status as the world’s largest humanitarian donor.
The pledge creates an umbrella fund from which money will be doled out to individual agencies and priorities, a key part of U.S. demands for drastic changes across the world body that have alarmed many humanitarian workers and led to severe reductions in programs and services.
The $2 billion is only a sliver of traditional U.S. humanitarian funding for U.N.-backed programs, which has run as high as $17 billion annually in recent years, according to U.N. data. U.S. officials say only $8-$10 billion of that has been in voluntary contributions. The United States also pays billions in annual dues related to its U.N. membership.
The announced U.S. pledge for aid programs of the United Nations — the world’s top provider of humanitarian assistance and biggest recipient of U.S. humanitarian aid money — takes shape in a preliminary deal with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, run by Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat and government official.
The United States wants to see “more consolidated leadership authority” in U.N. aid delivery systems, said a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details before the announcement at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva.
Under the plan, Fletcher and his coordination office “are going to control the spigot” on how money is distributed to agencies, the official said.
“This humanitarian reset at the United Nations should deliver more aid with fewer tax dollars — providing more focused, results-driven assistance aligned with U.S foreign policy,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz.
“The agreement requires the U.N. to consolidate humanitarian functions to reduce bureaucratic overhead, unnecessary duplication, and ideological creep,” the State Department said in a statement. “Individual U.N. agencies will need to adapt, shrink, or die.”
