XUNICEF News and Views

With the UNGA high-level week about to kick off, and in the spirit of the International Day of Peace, 21 September,

Doesnt this resonate with the exchanges on our XUNICEF Blog regarding leadership and various other concerns  that were expressed in the different comments about UNICEF and other UN development agencies ?

The United Nations is running out of money — and the United States is a big reason why.

Fragmentation of UN headquarter functions Ronny  Patz   Linkedin 11 February 2026 Click here for the post One of the weirdest developments of UN80 is the increasing fragmentation of  headquarter functions, including to Germany, Italy, or Spain. At yesterday's  board meeting, Italy reminded everyone that not only are functions moved to Italy, but to two different cities, increasing even within-country fragmentation. We saw last year what happens when agencies like IOM move functions to Germany (Berlin), and when funding dries up, offices are quietly closed down. I wrote about this last year: https://lnkd.in/dU3nqXfJ I don't want to argue against relocations per se, but there has never been an honest discussions about how the HQ functions of the entire system should look like, and whether centralization or decentralization are actually useful. So everything happens by competition now, not by cooperation, which is the opposite of what UN proponents talk a...

Articles shared by Lou Mendez Editor's Note: Earlier this week we posted UNFPA's World Population Report, 2025. Cory Ohlendorf writing in The Daily Valet gave some interesting comments on the report and linked David Bloom's IMF article. Both are worth reading. Click the links for the full articles.

Article shared by Richard Bridle Perhaps worthy of inclusion in the newsletter. Richard Click here for the article Summary The Trump administration is reportedly preparing sweeping changes to U.S. engagement with multilateral institutions, including the UN, World Bank, IMF, and over 20 other international organizations.

From the ashes of World War II, three institutions were created as linchpins of a new global order. Now, in an unusual move, the top official in one — the secretary-general of the United Nations — is pressing for major changes in the other two. Antonio Guterres says the International Monetary Fund has benefited rich countries instead of poor ones. And he describes the IMF and World Bank ’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a “glaring failure” that left dozens of countries deeply indebted. Guterres’ criticism, in a recent paper, isn’t the first time he’s called for overhauling global financial institutions. But it is his most in-depth analysis of their problems, cast in light of their response to the pandemic, which he called a “stress test” for the organizations. His comments were issued ahead of meetings called by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Thursday and Friday to address reforms of the multilateral development banks and other issues. Neither the IMF nor the World...