The UN system’s total revenue grew to US$ 74.3 billion in 2022 – an increase of US$ 8.4 billion, or 12.8%, compared to 2021.1 The three entities with the highest absolute revenue growth were the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). WFP’s revenue grew the most in absolute terms, by US$ 4.6 billion, with its total revenue of US$ 14.4 billion setting a new record for a single entity. FAO, meanwhile, experienced the highest growth rate in revenue compared to 2021 (54%).
UN system revenue represents the consolidated revenues of 43 United Nations entities (in some instances with further disaggregation) that report their financial data to the Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB). Notably, the CEB has become a central repository of reliable, comparable system-wide and entity-level data, with all the UN entities that were expected to report on their funding sources and expenditures having done so for the 2022 data.
Assessed contributions constitute the consolidated payments made by all Member States arising from the treaties they signed in order to become UN members. These resources are used to fund the UN Secretariat’s regular budget, the UN’s peacekeeping operations, and the budgets of some UN entities. Voluntary core contributions are untied financial contributions made by Member States and other contributors to support the budgets of UN entities. Assessed contributions and voluntary core contributions together constitute core funding, providing unrestricted resources to UN entities in support of their overall strategic and operational plans. These contributions therefore provide the highest quality and most flexible funding.
Earmarked contributions, also called non-core resources, involve voluntary funding by donors directed towards specific locations, themes, activities and operations. As such, these resources are not fully flexible. There is a wide range of earmarked funding types, which will be discussed further in section 1.2.
The fourth revenue stream – revenue from other activities – comprises resources not classified as ‘contributions’ according to the organisation’s accounting policies. This encompasses, among other things, fees for services linked to the provision of knowledge, management or product services, and gains on investments and exchange rates differences (definitions of the four financial instruments and their characteristics are described in Box 3, on page 88.).
Figure 1 illustrates how the 2022 UN system revenue was distributed among the four financing instrument types. As can be seen, the UN system is to a high degree financed by earmarked resources: the US$ 49.6 billion of such funding in 2022 equates to a 67% share of the UN system’s overall revenue for the year. The absolute amounts of assessed contributions, voluntary core contributions and revenue from other activities all decreased compared to 2021, together accounting for a US$ 1.2 billion drop, while earmarked resources increased by US$ 9.6 billion.
Funding of the UN system by financing instrument, 2022
Key insights in a flash
Source: Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB).
Table 1 resents a breakdown of 2022 revenue to reporting entities by type of financial instrument, accompanied by sparklines depicting the evolution of total revenue by entity since 2010 (or alternatively the year an entity began reporting to the CEB).2 The five largest UN entities in terms of 2022 revenue were, respectively, WFP, UNICEF, the UN Secretariat, the UN Department of Peace Operations (UN-DPO) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Table 1 also illustrates the diversity of funding sources among UN entities, which depend on different combinations of the four financial instruments. For instance, some entities, such as UN-DPO, rely primarily on flexible funding through assessed contributions, while others, such as UNICEF and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), are funded mainly through voluntary core and earmarked contributions.
Figure 2 provides an overview of funding trends in the UN system from 2010 to 2022. The left-hand side illustrates the growth in funding by instrument, expressed in billions of US dollars, while the right-hand side shows the share of each financing instrument within the total UN system revenue. Overall, the nominal volume of funding to the UN system grew by 87% over the period, from a starting point of US$ 39.6 billion in 2010. This growth has primarily been driven by increases in earmarked funding. In 2022, earmarked contributions reached record levels of close to US$ 50 billion – a $30 billion increase since 2010. This translates into a rise in the share of earmarked resources from 51% in 2010 to 67% in 2022. Meanwhile, the volume of core contributions has remained fairly stable over time, leading to a decrease of its share within total UN system funding from 44% in 2010 to 26% in 2022.
Distribution of UN system funding by financing instrument, 2010-2022
Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB)
The latest official data for 2023 indicates that, due to large volumes of unpaid assessed contributions and reduced voluntary contributions, entities are currently facing financial constraints and cash shortages. This seems to have led to a structural change in the growth trend previously seen in the UN’s revenue sources. One example of these constraints relates to the UN Secretariat’s regular budget. In January 2024, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, sent a letter to all Member State permanent representatives highlighting 2023 year-end arrears of US$ 859 million and a shift in payment patterns. The result has been a liquidity crisis and a temporary suspension of hiring, as well as the curtailing of non-post spending to ensure adequate liquidity for paying salaries and allowances to staff and other personnel, as well as vendor commitments.3
When examining financial data over an extended period, relying solely on nominal values may not offer an accurate reflection of changes in the actual purchasing power of money. Figure 3 illustrates the disparity between total UN system revenue in nominal and real terms. The latter is calculated based on deflators published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC), with amounts expressed in constant 2021 US dollars. The UN system’s real-term revenues for 2022 are higher than the nominal values, indicating that the positive effect of the appreciation of the US dollar against the basket of DAC currencies on the UN revenue’s purchasing power was larger than the negative effect due to the rate of inflation.
Nominal and real UN system funding, 2010 - 2022 (US$ billion)
Key insights in a flash
Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
For consistency with earlier versions of this report, the figures in Part One are – with the exception of figures 3 and 24 – presented in nominal terms.
Endnotes
All monetary amounts in this chapter are expressed in current United States dollars, unless otherwise stated. ‘Real term’ values are based on amounts expressed in constant 2021 United States dollars, using deflators published by OECD-DAC that consider the combined effect of inflation and exchange rate movements.
The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) contributed US$ 80 million to total UN system revenue in 2022 – the first time it has reported. To ensure consistency with previous reports, financial data for the UN Volunteers pro-gramme (UNV) has remained in the aggregate for UNDP, despite the former reporting separately since 2020. Similarly, the UN Interregional Crime and Jus-tice Research Institute (UNICRI) is reported together with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which began reporting separately from 2021.
United Nations Secretary-General, letter on liquidity crisis, 25 January 2024, www.un.org/pga/wp-con-tent/uploads/sites/108/2024/01/SG-Letter-on-Liqui….