The General Assembly has approved a $3.45 billion regular budget for the United Nations for 2026.

The approval followed weeks of intensive negotiations and one of the Organisation’s most important reform initiatives, UN80.

The budget, approved by the 193-member General Assembly on Tuesday, authorised $3,450,426,300 for the coming year, covering UN’s three core pillars of work.

These are peace and security, sustainable development and human rights.

The budget largely reflected the secretary-general’s proposed 15 per cent reduction in financial resources and a nearly 19 per cent cut in staffing.

The regular budget finances the UN’s core activities, including political affairs, international justice and law, regional cooperation for development, human rights, humanitarian affairs and public information.

It is separate from the United Nations peacekeeping budget, which operates on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal cycle, while the regular budget follows the calendar year.

UN controller Chandramouli Ramanathan praised delegates of the Fifth Committee, the assembly’s main administrative and budget body, as the delegates wrapped up negotiations.

Mr Ramanathan praised the committee for steering a complex and compressed process to a timely conclusion.

“It has been a year of challenges,” he said, noting that the secretariat had been tasked with assembling an entire budget in less than six weeks, producing hundreds of tables and responding to thousands of questions from oversight bodies and member states.

The controller warned that the adoption of the budget marked the beginning, not the end of a demanding implementation phase.

He said as of January 1, 2026, 2,900 positions would be abolished, while no fewer than 1,000 staff separations had already been finalised.

This, he said, required careful management to ensure affected personnel continued to receive salaries and entitlements during the transition.

He also welcomed what he described as a record level of potential advance payments by member states toward the 2026 budget and appealed for continued prompt payment of assessed contributions. 

(NAN)