Briefing General Assembly on UN80 Initiative, Secretary-General Stresses ‘Ultimate Direction’ of Organization Rests with Member States

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks on the UN80 Initiative, delivered at the General Assembly, in New York today:

Thank you for the opportunity to brief you on the UN80 Initiative. Since my last update on 1 August, we have made steady progress across all three Workstreams. Allow me to begin with a few words on Workstreams 1 and 2, before turning to the principal focus of our discussion: Workstream 3.

On the first Workstream — efficiencies and improvements. A month ago, I transmitted to the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, the famous ACABQ, the advance unedited version of the revised estimates relating to the proposed programme budget for 2026 and the support account for 2025/26. The Committee has since started its review.

The report outlines targeted efficiencies and cost reductions to the regular budget and for the first six months of the support account for next year. It also presents initial measures to improve the management and operations of the Secretariat.

As a result, we identified targeted efficiencies and cost reductions of over 15 per cent in the proposed 2026 regular budget; and about 19 per cent in posts — compared to the approved levels for [2025]. These decisions were not taken lightly.

They were calibrated to maintain balance across the three pillars of our work — peace and security, human rights and sustainable development — while reinforcing support to developing countries and sustaining momentum for the 2030 Agenda [for Sustainable Development].

We are particularly keen on protecting support in the field to developing countries, with a particular emphasis on the African continent, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States.

Both the resident coordinator system and the Peacebuilding Fund are also protected — and our new peacebuilding configuration enhances efficiencies and consolidates capacities for sustaining peace.

At the same time, the revised estimates introduce initial measures to improve efficiency. These include relocating certain functions from higher-cost to lower-cost duty stations; consolidating administrative platforms, starting with New York and Bangkok; and unifying payroll across a global team in three locations.

The purpose is clear: to reduce duplication, strengthen quality and safeguard mandate delivery while responding to Member States’ call for greater efficiency. These proposals would affect the daily work and lives of staff across the Secretariat — from relocations and revised functions to, in some cases, separations. We remain committed to supporting all colleagues through this transition and have put in place measures to assist potentially affected staff.

As you examine the revised estimates and the related report of the ACABQ in the weeks ahead, my team and I remain fully at your disposal for clarifications and to support your deliberations.

Turning to Workstream 2 — mandate implementation review. I commend the steps taken since our meeting in August — including the establishment of an informal ad hoc working group, co-chaired by Jamaica and New Zealand. Here, too, you can count on my team’s full support as you carry out this critical work.

The working group has provided a comprehensive work plan from now until March 2026 including a series of briefings and consultations structured around the three stages of the mandate lifecycle. The working group has already started a new series of briefings this week — providing an excellent forum for discussions and consensus-building, which will provide an important pathway to improve mandate implementation.

In parallel, we are advancing the proposals contained in the mandate implementation report that fall within my authority. These initial steps include: Expanding the scope and functionalities of the mandate registries and transparency tools; shortening our reports; combining reports covering similar issues when feasible; and publishing download statistics — to ensure greater efficiency and transparency.

Now let us turn to Workstream 3 — structural changes and programmatic realignments. You received my progress report "Shifting Paradigms: United to Deliver" and this happened just ahead of the General Assembly’s high-level week. The report is now available in all six official languages. It reflects intense, months-long, system-wide work.

In May 2025, at the Chief Executive Board, I established seven thematic clusters, involving the whole UN system, bringing together expertise and perspectives from across the system.

Each cluster was tasked with identifying how programmes might be realigned and how structures could be reshaped to deliver greater impact. Intercluster sessions also took place to coordinate proposals across thematic areas. We received many ideas from the system, before holding a series of discussions to refine them further.

The progress report proposes three sets of paradigm shifts for the UN system as a whole: Shifts within each pillar; shifts in how we work across pillars; and shifts [in] how we enable our operations collectively.

In listening carefully to your Heads of State and Government during high-level week, I heard a clear and resounding message: Many of you share the premise of my report — that a transformation in the way the UN system organizes its work is urgently needed to make the Organization fit for today’s challenges.

This transformation must be anchored in clear principles – the very principles that have guided our UN80 effort: To advance the purposes and uphold the UN Charter across all three pillars of our work; to strengthen the UN’s ability to support countries in delivering on the 2030 Agenda and to respond effectively to emerging issues — including those identified in the Pact for the Future; to maximize the concrete impact of our activities and services for Member States; and to undertake the reforms in strict accordance with the applicable rules and procedures — including the established practices of relevant intergovernmental bodies.

My vision for the United Nations system is clear: Entities that work together as one to deliver better — overcoming fragmentation, eliminating duplication, improving funding models and maximizing synergies.

Entities that are more streamlined — with fewer redundancies; more collaborative — with different parts of the system working seamlessly together; and more cost-effective — ensuring that resources entrusted to us deliver maximum impact for the people we serve.

My progress report sets out more than 70 individual action points to help realize that vision — across peace and security, humanitarian operations, development and human rights, as well as in our cross-pillar efforts and the enablers of our work.

I will highlight some of the key proposals. First, in the peace and security pillar. I propose to consolidate and reconfigure teams at Headquarters, as well as special political missions starting with Yemen, Cyprus and Central Africa — to eliminate duplication and increase coherence in our support to Member States. Our peace operations must also continue to evolve and adapt.

To this end, I am proposing that the delivery of more programmatic tasks of multi-dimensional peace operations be delegated to the best-placed UN system entities — backed by their programmatic funding and the full force of their mandates. This "networked" model would allow us to deliver more impactfully, but with less cost, less duplication and fewer challenges in transitions, while retaining full accountability to the mission mandate.

Today, we have several situations around the world where we have a department of the mission that has the same functions of an agency working in the country team. This doesn’t make sense. It is much better to have the possibility to delegate the functions of the mission to the agency that is best placed to implement them and that will obviously facilitate the transition when the mission closes. I will present a comprehensive set of proposals following the conclusion of the Peace Operations Review mandated by the Pact for the Future.

Second, humanitarian operations. Humanitarian action is on the brink of collapse. Needs are higher than ever, yet funding for the UN system’s humanitarian operations is shrinking. Now is the time for bold, systemic change, building on the Humanitarian Reset: to deliver faster, at lower cost and with greater reliability to the millions of people whose lives depend on us in moments of crisis.

With this goal in mind, we have established a New Humanitarian Compact between UN humanitarian agencies — a six-point blueprint to deliver better, restore trust in multilateral action and maximize the impact of every dollar. The Compact will bring the UN system together in a new Collaborative Humanitarian Diplomacy Initiative — fostering coordinated negotiation and unified messaging, so that we speak and act as one for those in greatest need.

We will cut coordination bureaucracy — by simplifying humanitarian response plans, meetings and structures. We will integrate the supply chains of the principal humanitarian agencies — enabling more cost-effective procurement, pooled freight and shared logistics at global and country levels.

We also propose to scale up the use of common services — from office space to fleets and security arrangements — so that entities such as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), World Food Programme (WFP), Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and others can rely on a shared backbone of support services.

Everything that is specific of the activity of an agency should be developed by the agency, but everything that is common should be done together with a larger increase of efficiency and a meaningful reduction of costs.

We will strengthen our joint capacities to leverage data for faster, earlier, more targeted and dignified action, powered by a new Humanitarian Data Collaborative. And we will align responsibilities to reduce programmatic overlaps in the fields of food, mobility, beneficiary data, health and nutrition.

Third, sustainable development. The 2017 reform of the United Nations development system reshaped how we support the 2030 Agenda. Yet, the current context demands much more. Too often, a patchwork of UN entities and specialized agencies presents Governments with a maze of entry points — and sometimes competing initiatives — when they seek UN support. This undermines coherence, dilutes our impact on the ground and weakens delivery on country priorities.

To address this challenge, I have put forward several proposals. One is to restructure entities where there may be overlaps or duplications. With that goal in mind, in the first instance, we propose to conduct a thorough assessment of the potential benefits of a merger between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) — to create a stronger engine for sustainable development, with greater reach and scale.

Similarly, we will conduct a thorough assessment of the benefits of a merger of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN—Women) and their respective mandates and capacities.

Bringing these together could provide the United Nations with a unified and more powerful voice on gender equality and the rights of women and girls. I believe it is worth exploring how these structures might be reconfigured for greater efficiency and impact for sustainable development. We will conduct comprehensive assessments and present initial findings and options to Member States in early 2026. We are also open to considering any other mergers Member States might suggest based on their own evaluation of the system.

At the regional level, I propose a reset, to regroup and host more capacities around the locations of regional commissions and other options where viable, led by the Deputy Secretary-General. At the country level, I also propose a reconfiguration of our country teams.

Today, in many countries, we see more than 20 UN development system entities present — often with limited budgets and costly administrative footprints. We need leaner, more impactful country teams – with less spending on physical presence and more resources for expertise and impact. The resident coordinators must serve as the single-entry point — ensuring that Member States can access the full breadth of UN expertise.

To that end, the working group led by the Deputy Secretary-General will also develop recommendations for a reconfiguration of the country teams by early next year. In support of these efforts, our specialized agencies, with their deep technical expertise, will help develop a new mechanism to proactively deliver more "expertise on demand" through the system including at country level.

This is an extremely important measure because, until now, specialized agencies that have been created during different moments in the past that normally depend on governing bodies related to different ministries in Governments have to a certain extent, have been living in isolation in relation to the rest of the system. But, they have enormous capacities that can be used by the whole system, both at the global and country level and that is why we are creating this mechanism of expertise on demand, putting the specialized agencies at the service of the UN system as a whole.

In the UN Secretariat, as a contribution to this system-wide push, we will also establish Joint Knowledge Hubs — pooling more know-how on key issues, such as climate change, science, technology and innovation, or financing for development, avoiding present duplications.

I’ll give you two examples. Today, we have two reports on development in Africa, one in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), one in the African Economic Commission. Obviously, from now on, we will have only one report. We have two reports on global development, one from the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, on from UNCTAD. Obviously, from now on, we’ll have only one report. When we have several departments that deal with the same issues, it makes sense that we stop this duplication, and we bring together those capacities in hubs specialized in the areas that are more important for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Turning now to human rights. We already have a strong UN architecture in place, led by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. To build on this foundation and further improve coordination across the system, I propose establishing a Human Rights Group comprising entities from across the UN system. This mechanism would ensure that human rights considerations are systematically integrated into all UN policies and activities.

I have outlined some options to strengthen each of our three pillars. But, we must also reinforce our cross-pillar approach — to eliminate duplication and to deepen cooperation. More than two thirds of UN system-wide spending goes to complex settings — where peace, development, humanitarian action and human rights converge. In such contexts, the entire system must work as one.

Starting at the global level, we will streamline our internal coordination — reducing overlap among senior leadership fora; establishing regional cross-pillar platforms; and unifying coordination for prevention under one platform — so the UN system acts as one where peace, development, humanitarian action and human rights intersect.

I also propose strengthening how we collaborate across development and humanitarian efforts, through a Shared Platform Initiative that will simplify the systems and tools for our Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators.

Finally, let me touch upon the critical shifts in key enablers for our system-wide impact: Administrative support services, technology, data, funding, training and research. On operational support, we envision an irreversible shift towards shared administrative services across the UN system, both in global operations and in country back-offices, building on the work of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group. This should be enshrined in a new Unified Services Roadmap, and with the New Humanitarian Compact as a catalyst.

On technology, in particular, we will consolidate the fragmented IT [information technology] landscape across the UN system to lower costs and enhance efficiency. The savings we achieve can then be reinvested in a new Technology Accelerator Platform — strengthening our business practices and scaling up our joint capacities in leveraging digital capacity and artificial intelligence (AI) — building on the development already achieved by certain departments and agencies.

This joint programme will leverage UN 2.0 capabilities and will be led by those entities from the Secretariat, specialized agencies, funds and programmes that have already developed the most advanced capabilities in this field that must be put at the service of the whole UN system to accelerate its technology transformation. At the same time, we will advance a UN System Data Commons so that you can find all our data, statistics and shared expertise easily in one place.

On research and training, we propose to consolidate several entities into two stronger pillars: Merging the UN Staff System College into the UN Institute for Training and Research to create a unified training pillar; and integrating the UN Research Institute for Social Development into the UN University.

Finally, we propose a review of our core and pooled funding mechanisms, to make them simpler, cheaper and more impactful for contributors than fragmented financing. They must be the most compelling choices.

You have heard a number of ideas and proposals. Let me once again emphasize that the ultimate direction of the UN80 Initiative rests with you, the Member States of the United Nations.

As I said in my report, the proposals have been framed in order to ensure that all reforms are undertaken in accordance with the applicable rules and procedures — including the Charter of the United Nations and decisions, resolutions and established practice of the competent intergovernmental organs.

It is your prerogative — and your responsibility, as reaffirmed by the General Assembly’s resolution 79/318. During the high-level week, many of your leaders underscored another message: That we must turn crisis into opportunity — to safeguard multilateralism and to strengthen the United Nations to meet the challenges that lie ahead.

I hear that same message echoed by the women and men of the United Nations who serve across duty stations around the world, often in hardship, always with dedication. They deliver essential services, protect those in harm’s way, and work tirelessly for peace. They, too, aspire to serve a United Nations that delivers more effectively.

I intend to make full use of the remaining time in my mandate to secure concrete realignments that will strengthen this Organization — and to ensure that my successor inherits a United Nations firmly set on the path of renewal and transformation. I look forward to hearing from you today.

Building on your insights, I will establish a dedicated UN80 implementation team. Its task will be to advance proposals so that they can be presented to the relevant intergovernmental organs for decision; and, where proposals fall within my authority, to move forward with the necessary steps for their implementation.

Later this month, I intend to present a UN80 action plan to the UN system’s Chief Executives Board to ensure full engagement across the United Nations family. Following that discussion, I will present to you concrete deliverables and timelines for advancing a number of the proposals contained in this report.

Over the coming months, we will continue to consult Member States and our staff, and provide you with regular updates on the efforts undertaken through the UN80 Initiative. Proposals under Workstreams 1 and 2 are proceeding through established channels in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) and the Ad Hoc Working Group of the General Assembly for discussion and decision-making.

Many of the proposals under Workstream 3 are broader in scope. They touch upon multiple entities of the UN system, and which are subject to a variety of governing arrangements. For this reason, we will introduce developed proposals in different fora, as appropriate for each proposal.

As we move forward, we will make every effort to uphold the Organization’s principles regarding geographic and gender diversity, as well as our commitment to youth and disability inclusion. Please rest assured that all applicable rules and procedures will be fully respected, and that Member States will be consulted at every step of the way throughout the process. I look forward to your steady guidance as we carry this work forward together.

You might have noticed already a progressive convergence between the three workstreams. The revised estimates before you already include the results of some restructuring activities and programme realignments. More will follow in the programme budget for 2027.

The work you are currently undertaking in the working group on mandates will allow for improvements in the entire life cycle of mandates — creation, implementation and delivery. At the same time, the conclusions of Member States on mandates will guide further programme realignments and structural changes to be undertaken and will have clear budgetary implications.

Taken together, the measures of the three workstreams will produce a much more coherent, impactful and cost-effective UN system as a whole. I believe that the General Assembly is the right place for the overall oversight of the work ahead. As you reflect on the proposals contained in the report, my team and I remain fully at your disposal for any consultations you may wish to hold.

And if Member States should feel that these proposals are not ambitious enough, I stand ready to work hand in hand with you to pursue any alternatives you may wish to consider to meet the challenges before us.

The path forward is yours to decide. The choices you make will shape the future of this initiative and the capacity of the United Nations to deliver on the promises of the Charter in the years ahead. I look forward to your ideas and to your guidance. Thank you.