“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” as economist Paul Romer once said. The current funding crisis, while deeply concerning, also offers an opportunity for reform. This moment should be used to revisit policies with unintended negative consequences, including cost-recovery rules, RBM incentives and the heavy reliance on earmarked funding. At the same time, recent advances in data quality can be leveraged to strengthen accountability for resource allocation at the aggregate level, while greater conceptual clarity, stronger accountability mechanisms, and more systematic learning can help improve the integration of functions. Taken together, these measures can support better resource allocation and deliver greater impact for sustainable development and humanitarian action.
In pursuing these reforms, there is scope for cross-organisational learning, particularly between the UN and international financial institutions (IFIs). Cost-recovery models and more granular financial reporting stand out as system-wide leverage points, where the UN could draw on IFI experience in managing trust funds and vertical mechanisms.
Proposed structural changes under the UN80 initiative, such as merging UN entities, must draw on lessons from past reforms, including the creation of UN Women and the decoupling of the Resident Coordinator system. Evidence from MOPAN’s recent assessment of UN Women and its forthcoming assessment of UNDP highlights that structural reform and organisational effectiveness in new institutional settings are long-term processes that can take years, if not decades.
The first thematic brief in this series explored how the UN could unlock efficiencies to ‘’do better with less’’. To meet that challenge, it will also be important to revisit efforts to build a new generation of UNCTs, designed for more tailored country-level configurations. Beyond deciding which entities should be present, the UN needs more research on which functions to prioritise in different contexts. A better-calibrated mix would allow the UN to scale back operational interventions where national authorities are stronger, while maintaining essential operational capacity in conflict-affected settings.