00:00At the Secretariat, we cut staff by over 20% and budgets by 15%.
00:05This meant thousands of posts disappearing.
00:11The humanitarian heroes that serve the UN, the organizations like the United Nations Refugee Agency, where I once served,
00:21they probably, there'll be about 8,000 jobs cut.
00:28And this in about a period of about one year.
00:33And if you add to that, WFP, the World Food Program, has lost about 40% of its funding as
00:42compared to the year before.
00:45UNICEF has also lost significant funding, mostly from U.S. cuts.
00:50But as big donors in Europe also have had to increase their defense spending, instead they have looked for where
01:03to find that kind of money.
01:05And they picked humanitarian and development funding as a source.
01:10And unfortunately, the result of all of this, including with the collapse of USAID, is a sharp increase of suffering.
01:21Quite a diminished workforce and a scrambling to see how we can do the best with less.
01:34And it is an enormous, enormous challenge.
01:37Right.
01:38Since we're on this topic now, I'm curious to know, you know, with regards to the UN facing funding shortfalls,
01:45where are the impacts being most felt?
01:48One, is the organization seeing this as something temporary or, you know, something that we can sort of, you know,
01:55get back to?
01:56Or is it a more sustained funding challenge?
01:59And I think with your role as global communications as well, how is it adapting while communicating difficult decisions to
02:09communities that are affected?
02:12Yeah.
02:13I mean, there's always been a perennial funding problem.
02:18There was never, ever enough funds to meet the needs of the suffering in our world.
02:23The new UN High Commissioner for Refugees is working on a campaign to reduce the number of refugees who are
02:34languishing in exile, unable to return home, but unable to integrate.
02:41And to trying to work with governments to find new mechanisms so that they move off of dependency.
02:47So, trying to find innovative and new ideas, maybe bringing in the private sector as well, philanthropy, new sources of
03:00funding.
03:01But mostly, again, we will need more donor support.
03:07We will need to continue to make the case as long as the wars that are driving so much misery.
03:15And this really is the origin of most of it.
03:19Of course, it's compounded by climate change, made very dramatic by the El Nino that is happening right now.
03:28But mostly, it is the wars that is driving the misery.
03:32And to save the lives who are affected by it, we need funding support.
03:38And that's never going to change.
03:39And that's never going to change.
03:39And that's never going to change.
03:39And that's never going to change.
03:39And that's never going to change.
