How the United Nations is funded is presented in Chapter 1 with the focus on UN revenue allocation and purpose. The UN system’s total revenue continued to grow to US$ 74.3 billion in 2022, – an increase of US$ 8.4 billion, or 12.8%, compared to 2021, with most of the growth accounted for by increasing earmarked contributions. Despite increased Official Development Assistance (ODA) in recent years, quality funding for UN development activities fell significantly short of targets, jeopardising the UN’s effectiveness in SDG progress.

Where UN funding is allocated is shown in Chapter 2 with the spotlight on resource distribution among different UN functions and geographies and to what purposes humanitarian expenditure, consuming a large share of the ODA, increase year by year. UN reporting towards the Sustainable Development Goals has expanded significantly, making it possible to link the vast majority of United Nations expenditure to them.

Year two of the Data Cube strategy: Some successes and challenges makes up Chapter 3 with the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination Secretariat giving an overview of the implementation of the ‘Data Cube’ initiative. Its overall objectives are to maximise transparency, minimise efforts and reduce the UN entity reporting burden. This year marks progress with the agreement on a minimum UN CEB dataset, resulting in greater comprehensiveness and quality reporting by UN entities since the introduction of the UN Data Standards in 2018.