UN risks ‘imminent financial collapse’: Guterres warns | World News

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the United Nations risks “imminent financial collapse” as member states fail to pay their dues, which would plunge the organization into a deepening crisis.

In a scathing letter to all 193 member states, Guterres declared that cash reserves could dry up by July 2026, jeopardizing the delivery of critical programs around the world. He called on countries to meet mandatory contributions or reform the UN’s financial rules to avert disaster, according to a report by Reuters.

The crisis comes after the United States, the UN’s biggest donor, pulled out of organizations it saw as a “waste of taxpayers’ dollars” while cutting contributions to regular and peacekeeping budgets. Many other member states continue to pay their debt or flatly refuse to pay.

Despite the UN General Assembly’s partial overhaul of the financial system in late 2025, the organization is struggling with a major cash shortage.

At its headquarters in Geneva, stark warning signs cover the entire building. In desperate cost-cutting moves, escalators remain closed and heating is turned down. In his letter, Guterres emphasized that financial troubles have hit the UN in the past, but this crisis is “categorically different.”

Emphasizing that the UN Charter obliges member states to pay determined contributions, Guterres warned in his letter quoted in the Reuters report that 2025 was closed with a record figure of 77 percent of unpaid dues, threatening the “integrity of the entire system”.

He also noted the ‘double whammy’ in which the rules force the UN to return unspent program funds it never received. “We cannot run budgets with funds that have not been collected, nor can we return funds we have not received,” he wrote. This month alone the UN was forced to ‘refund’ $227 million in uncollected 2026 assessments.

“The outcome is clear,” Guterres said, “Either all member states will pay in full and on time, or they will overhaul fiscal rules to avoid an imminent collapse.”

The crisis comes amid chronic underfunding of humanitarian work, which worsened last year.

The United States, the UN’s biggest donor, skipped its regular 2025 budget disbursement, gave only 30 percent for peacekeeping and withdrew from 31 UN agencies in January to cut “globalist” spending under the Trump administration.

Late last year he pledged just $2 billion for humanitarian aid, far below previous levels, and called on the UN to ‘adapt or die’.

Cuts from allies such as Britain and Germany are increasing tensions. Guterres had previously flagged concerns of a ‘race to bankruptcy’ in October, reflecting the deepening liquidity crisis.

The concern comes as US President Trump bypasses the UN through the Gaza-focused ‘Peace Board’.