The Data Standards for UN system-wide reporting of financial data was developed through a joint initiative between the CEB’s HLCM and UNSDG. The standards seek to enable accurate, comparable disaggregated financial reporting across the entire UN system, based on agreed definitions and classifications aligned with the SDGs and international standards.

These agreed definitions encompass the four UN functions: 1) development assistance; 2) humanitarian assistance; 3) peace operations; and 4) global agenda and specialised assistance. Development assistance aims to promote the sustainable development of UN programming countries, with a focus on long-term impacts. The primary objective of humanitarian assistance is to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain human dignity, often as a response to natural disasters or man-made crises. Peace operations involve activities that help conflict-affected countries create the conditions for lasting peace. Finally, global agenda and specialised assistance refers to activities that either address global or regional challenges without a direct link to the other three functions, or support for sustainable development in non-UN programming countries.²⁶

The UN system’s total expenditure reached US$ 67.5 billion  in 2022, an increase of US$ 7 billion – almost 12% – compared to the previous year. As shown in the doughnut in Figure 25, which illustrates how these funds were distributed among the four functions in 2022, development assistance accounted for US$ 20.1 billion, comprising 30% of total annual UN system-wide expenditure, while the equivalent figures for humanitarian assistance were US$ 31.1 billion and 46%.

The bar graph on the right-hand side of Figure 25 illustrates the yearly breakdown of expenditure across the four functions from 2018 to 2022. While the proportion allocated to development assistance shows minor fluctuations, it has generally remained stable, on average accounting for 31% of total UN system expenditure.²⁷ By contrast, the proportion allocated to humanitarian assistance shows a clear upward trend, having increased from 36% in 2018 to 46% in 2022. Meanwhile, the share allocated to peace operations declined from 19% to 13% over the same five-year period, alongside a decrease in the proportion of expenditure on global agenda and special assistance, which fell from 15% to 11%.

There has been a dramatic rise in the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance over the period in question, from 136 million people worldwide in 2018 to 339 million people in 2022. Behind this expansion lies what has been termed a ‘polycrisis’, which encompasses factors ranging from health epidemics to protracted conflicts; forced displacement to increased costs-of-living; acute food insecurity to the impacts of climate change. Unmet appeal requirements – the disparity between needs and required funding – reached US$ 21.3 billion in 2022: although the US$ 30.4 billion of coordinated plan funding represented a record high, the estimated resources required to assist the 230 million people most in need of humanitarian assistance stood at US$ 51.7 billion.²⁸

Peace operations expenditure is largely accounted for by spending on UN peacekeeping and political missions. Peacekeeping operations are led by UN-DPO, which is tasked with assisting Member States and the Secretary-General in their efforts to advance peace and security. When it comes to the implementation of UN Security Council mandates, UN-DPO provides political and executive direction to UN peacekeeping operations – including the deployment of civilian, police and military personnel – and is responsible for maintaining contact with the Security Council, troop and financial contributors, and parties to the conflict. In 2022, there were 12 UN peacekeeping operations spread across three continents.²⁹