Part One — United Nations Resource Flows
Chapter One: How is the United Nations funded?
9 min read
The way in which the UN is financed affects its ability to operate
Overview
Part One of the report describes how UN resources are generated and allocated. Using the most up-to-date and reliable data available, it provides answers to a series of straightforward questions: How and by whom is the UN funded? Where and for what purposes are the UN’s resources allocated?
It also focuses on the quality, types and sources of UN funding: Is there a difference between funding for humanitarian purposes and financing for development assistance? What about trends in inter-agency pooled funds? How has funding from non-governmental contributors changed over time?
Chapter One
How is the United Nations funded?
Chapter Two
Where is the UN funding allocated?
Chapter Three
Taking action in data quality
UN revenue
Total UN funding has grown steadily over the past decade. In 2010, the total revenue of the UN was US$ 39.6 billion. By 2019, total revenue amounted to US$ 56.9 billion, an increase of US$ 0.9 billion compared to 2018. While this increase is mainly due to actual growth in UN revenue, a small portion can be attributed to improved reporting. A detailed breakdown, by financial instrument, of total funding for 43 entities in 2019 can be explored in Table 2.
In 2019, the total UN revenue was
US$ 57 billion
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TABLE 2
Total Revenue of the UN System by Entity and by Financing instrument, 2019 (US$ million)
Figure 2: Distribution of total UN system funding, by financing instrument
The instruments used to fund the UN
Earmarked funding, which is tied to specific projects, themes or locations, amounted to US$ 32.9 billion in 2019. While voluntary, such contributions are restricted in terms of how they can be used by the UN. The figure illustrates how the four main financing instruments (assessed contributions, voluntary core contributions, earmarked contributions and fees and other revenues) have evolved in the period 2010-2019. Predictable and flexible funding increases the UN’s ability to work efficiently and to adjust its support in times of crisis.
58%
of UN funding was earmarked in 2019
Fees and other revenue increased to
9%
in 2019
Assessed contributions were
24%
of UN funding in 2019
Funding sources for the UN system
The UN is largely funded by governments. Almost three-quarters (72%) of total UN revenue in 2019 came from direct government contributions. 58% of total UN funding originated from the 29 UN Member States that are OECD-DAC members. In 2019, 15% of total UN revenue came from multilateral channels, much of which is indirect government investment via funds, international financial institutions and European Union institutions. UN funding from non-state actors remains relatively small (US$ 2.9 billion in 2019) but growing, especially from the private sector.
Ten Member State contributors provide
> 50%
of UN funding
Figure 6: Funding sources for the UN system, 2019
Funding for the UN system remains concentrated among a limited number of donors, with ten Member States providing more than 50% of the UN’s funding. The United States is the largest contributor by volume but, relative to the size of their respective economies, Member States like Norway and Sweden (each contributing approximately 0.3% of their GNI to the UN) stand out. China has emerged as a significant UN contributor and is now among the five top Member State contributors (see further Figure 9 in the report).
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Figure 17: Deposits to UN inter-agency pooled funds 2010–2019 (US$ billion)
Inter-agency pooled funds
Funding for inter-agency pooled funds, a flexible instrument that facilitates multi-stakeholder collaboration, has grown steadily since 2015. In 2019, it amounted to US$ 3 billion, including US$ 1.8 billion and US$ 1.2 billion for humanitarian and development-related funds, respectively. By 2019, as a percentage of total earmarked funds for development, the share of inter-agency pooled funds had grown to 9%, close to the 2023 Funding Compact target of 10%. 11% of earmarked financing for humanitarian assistance was allocated to inter-agency pooled funding in 2019.
US$ 3 billion
for inter-agency pooled funds in 2019
UN funding and Official Development Assistance
The UN development system continues to be the largest and fastest growing channel for multilateral Overseas Development Assistance, but also remains the channel with the biggest share of earmarked funding. OECD-DAC countries contribute a higher proportion of earmarked funding to the UN system than they do to other multilateral institutions, such as EU institutions, the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, and regional development banks. The proportion of earmarked UN funding from OECD-DAC countries has also grown substantially since 2010. In 2019, the UN received nearly US$ 26 billion in funding, of which 70% was earmarked, compared to 61% in 2010. UN entities’ traditional role in crisis and emergency responses is one of the factors behind the UN’s relatively large share of earmarked contributions.
ODA to the UN was
US$ 26 billion
in 2019
Figure 22: Channels of total multilateral assistance from OECD-DAC countries, core and earmarked, 2010 and 2019 (US$ billion)
How does UN Funding compare with other multilateral organisations?
The data shows that the UN has consolidated its role as the largest channel for multilateral official development assistance (ODA), driven by the rapid growth in earmarked resources (see visualisation below and Figure 12 in full report). In 2010, the UN received 31% of total multilateral ODA funding, with the EU institutions’ share being 26% and the World Bank’s share 23%. By 2018, the UN – having absorbed half the total growth in multilateral aid – had seen its share grow to 34%, while the EU’s share had dropped to 23% and the World Bank’s to 22%.
As noted earlier, over half the total contributions to the UN come from the top ten Member State contributors and the EU. A similar pattern is true for contributions funding the UN’s humanitarian and development activities. Figures 17b and 18b in the full report present the 2018 funding mix of the top 20 contributors to UN humanitarian and development-related activities. They show that while the top five contributors are the same, their weight in the overall funding differs substantially between humanitarian and development-related activities.
Humanitarian funding is highly concentrated, with the top five contributors accounting for 63% of total humanitarian funding, with the United States as the top contributor alone accounting for 27 % of all funding for the UN’s humanitarian assistance in 2018. By contrast, the United States represented only 9 % of the overall funding for development-related activities; and the same group of top five contributors had a combined share of 36% of the total.