Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched “UN80” on 11 March 2025 and Under Secretary-General Guy Ryder has recently emphasized how UN80 is “the United Nations and the Secretary-General responding to the totality of our circumstances – our political circumstances, our financial circumstances, but also circumstances in which the effectiveness of multilateralism is up for scrutiny… the idea is to bring the United Nations out of this process in these rather turbulent times, in better shape”.
This briefing delves into the components of the UN80 initiative, with Member State and UN staff perspectives on the process and explores the context and pressures of long-running funding issues at the UN.