Secretary-General's remarks to the General Assembly on the UN80 Initiative

Excellencies,

I am pleased to share an update on the UN80 initiative – our collective push to help ensure the United Nations is best equipped to deliver for the people we serve.

Let me begin by reporting back to you on my meeting last week in Tokyo with the UN Chief Executives Board where I presented the draft of the present progress report.

UN80 was front and centre – as a topic of great shared interest and with strong support for its priority.

The heads of UN entities are totally committed to the success of UN80.

Like you, they know it is our pathway to greater impact.

I want to express my gratitude for your ongoing support for this work – and your commitment to help put our Organization in a stronger position to fulfil the mandates that you, the Member States, have given us.

From accelerating progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

To delivering on the Pact for the Future.

And so much more.

Excellencies,

The first chapter of my progress report reflects on why this moment requires deliberate and decisive reform.

Because inaction in the face of geopolitical turmoil would compound human suffering.

And because Member States have expressed their desire to shape a stronger, more impactful UN system.

That is why the reforms proposed under UN80 strive for a system that is ever more agile, coherent, cost-effective, and impactful in tackling global challenges.

The second chapter of my report looks at what this initiative is designed to solve:

Addressing the complexity of the UN system.

Moving from fragmentation to coherence.

Improving efficiency, transparency, and impact.

The third chapter reviews the logic and unifying rationale that guides each of the three workstreams and ensures they reinforce one another.

At its core, UN80 calls for a paradigm shift in how the UN system organizes its work and collaborates for greater impact.

From the moment Member States decide on a mandate…

Through the allocation of responsibilities and resources…

The implementation…

The assessment of impact…

And the ensuring of accountability.

The fourth chapter outlines some of the substantive progress achieved so far.

Under Workstream 1, this includes streamlining teams and processes within the Secretariat, which falls under my direct responsibility.

Notably, we realized a 21 percent reduction in posts for 2026 – while also minimizing impact on staff, facilitated by actions we began taking in early 2024.

We merged 11 teams into a common administrative platform serving 6,000 personnel in New York – with five additional duty stations to follow.

We launched a Digital Hub in Valencia to support Secretariat-wide digital service delivery.

We consolidated 10 payroll centres into a single global team.

Relocated 220 Secretariat posts from high-cost locations, plus approximately 1,900 posts more across the UN system.

Our emphasis throughout has been on improving consistency and reliability of support to programme delivery, eliminating parallel processes, and enabling managers to focus on results.

The 2027 proposed programme budget will highlight further opportunities:

By establishing common administrative platforms in Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi, and Addis Ababa and expanding the platform in New York;

Relocating functions to lower-cost duty stations, based on functional assessments, and proximity to operations and field presence;

Further reducing hierarchical layers at senior levels;

And beginning a process of senior-level post reductions that should be amplified in the 2028 budget.

Under Workstream 2, your landmark resolution on mandates provides a significant opportunity to strengthen discipline across their full life cycle.

UN80 recognizes that mandates are the responsibility and prerogative of Member States.

With Resolution 80/251, you have a tool for ensuring much more effective stewardship of how they are created, resourced, delivered, and reviewed.

The Secretariat is prepared to provide Member States with a range of support services that respond to your needs and expectations, in full compliance with the requests addressed to us in the resolution.

We have begun piloting the New Humanitarian Compact – a push for innovation, impact, and integration as we grapple with soaring needs and plummeting resources.

This includes simplifying humanitarian planning.

Unifying humanitarian supply chains, which account for 70 percent of overall humanitarian spending.

Strengthening the use of data and digital systems to better anticipate needs, target assistance, and improve interoperability across the humanitarian system.

Aligning roles and responsibilities across UN agencies.

And strengthening humanitarian diplomacy.

These new approaches are being piloted in five crisis settings – Afghanistan, Haiti, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Somalia, and Sudan – and we are looking at how they can be adapted and scaled for wider use.

And through the Shared Platform Initiative, we are helping Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators to bring together their teams around shared priorities, performance expectations, and accountability.

We will soon submit our review of peace operations for Member States’ consideration, with recommendations for how our established toolbox should adapt to the rapidly evolving nature of conflict and the deteriorating global peace and security landscape.

With less than five years left for the 2030 Agenda, country and regional arrangements are being redesigned to better support Member States and accelerate progress on the SDGs.

The reconfiguration of UN country teams and recalibration of the Resident Coordinator system builds on our earlier reforms to the UN development system – backed by a reset of the regional architecture and responding directly to General Assembly Resolution 72/279 on 1 June 2018.

The aim is to move towards more contextualized, tailored country footprints with clear criteria for presence and composition, leveraging support regionally and from across the UN system.

This is why we are creating a mechanism for expertise on demand, so country teams can access the support they need from the system quickly and easily.

It offers a common catalogue of available expertise, clear access protocols, and standardized administrative arrangements.

We are also developing joint knowledge hubs that pool thematic know-how and analysis.

The first ones will focus on trade and regional integration, productive transformation, and strategic foresight.

A Unified Services Roadmap is moving the system from fragmentation of support services to common arrangements.

A global feasibility study has shown the magnitude of the potential gains.

This logic is being used in respect of technology on which the system now spends two point five billion US dollars each year;

And in the creation of a UN data commons, with 26 entities already agreeing to bring together their data and statistics on a single platform.

Work on potential structural reforms is also advancing.

The transition of UNAIDS, with its capacities and mission mainstreamed into the co-sponsors of UNAIDS;

The consolidation of research and training capacities and the creation of a system-wide coordination mechanism co-led by UNU and UNITAR;

And the assessments of the potential mergers of UNFPA and UN Women, and of UNDP and UNOPS.

As these processes evolve, I will formulate and present to the General Assembly the decisions I consider appropriate.

Our review of UN system activities concerning the environment is advancing well and may have implications for existing arrangements.

In this regard, a mapping and analysis exercise focused on science, governance, coordination and implementation will result in an assessment report to me next month.

We have also taken steps to strengthen horizontal coordination to ensure our institutional arrangements and working practices to make sure that they contribute directly to mandate delivery.

While we strive to maximize effectiveness through UN80, it is vital that we maintain adequate capacity to fulfil mandates.

I am particularly concerned when it comes to our work on human rights, which received far fewer resources than other pillars – despite commitments made in the Pact for the Future.

That is why I established the Human Rights Group – to clarify responsibilities on this cross-cutting issue, share information, support coherent action across pillars, and help the system deliver more effectively. The Group was launched during the CEB meeting.

Excellencies,

The fifth chapter of my report reminds us that we are entering a critical new phase of the UN80 Initiative.

The phase for decisions and delivery.

Some of these decisions lie within my own authority as Secretary-General – and where they do, I am mobilizing the UN system to act with energy and determination, and keeping Member States fully informed.

But a great many others rest with you, the Member States.

Including decisions about structural reforms.

But here too, the UN system has important responsibilities:

To submit solid, timely proposals for your consideration.

And to follow through on your decisions.

Along the way, we must all be honest and impartial in our assessments.

Genuine reform requires tough choices.

This is no time for complacency, self-interest, or foot-dragging.

Like the founders of our Organization 80 years ago, we must act for all humanity, including future generations.

I am heartened by your commitment to the United Nations – and to its values, purposes and principles.

[My] report [identifies] six crucial ways in which you can help UN80 advance those aims.

First, use resolution 80/251 on mandates as a strategic governance tool – all the way from creation to implementation to impact to review.

This will help strengthen transparency, efficiency, coherence, and accountability, preserve Member States’ full prerogatives as owners of mandates, and empower them to be better informed and effective custodians of them.

At the same time, it can help identify overlap, reduce excessive reporting and meeting burdens, clarify responsibilities and create better conditions for review, adjustment or retirement of mandates.

Second, give clear direction for reconfiguration of UN country teams and resetting regional arrangements, building on relevant General Assembly and ECOSOC resolutions.

The aim is to offer host countries UN responses at scale, through easier and quicker access to cohesive support from entities across all pillars, whether resident or non-resident.

An important number of concrete proposals in this regard was also already presented to the ECOSOC in the QCPR project report.

This includes providing the funding to a recalibrated Resident Coordinator system which requires to deliver on its commitments across many diverse contexts.

Third, back the development of system-wide shared services, technology, and data at scale to improve delivery, and common management of technology and data across the UN system.

Governing bodies can help move the system from pilots to scale.

By encouraging adoption of common solutions.

Requiring transparent service standards and costs.

Supporting interoperability and data and technology governance.

And asking entities to justify any continued duplication where shared approaches would likely deliver better value and stronger results.

Fourth, weigh proposals for structural changes on their merits – notably when it comes to entity mergers, consolidation, and transition – while respecting applicable rules and procedures.

Many considerations will influence these decisions, and each process has its own complexities and specificities.

But in every case, I urge you to focus on whether the proposed structural changes would promote already agreed objectives, protect and advance existing mandates, and improve impact.

Fifth, align funding practices with the objectives of UN80 where appropriate – because funding choices shape institutional behaviour. That includes core and pooled funding to strengthen coherence and accountability.

This is distinct from the bedrock responsibility of all Member States to pay their regular assessed contributions in full and on time.

I call on Member States to do so, without conditions or delay.

UN80 can improve the way the United Nations performs, but it cannot substitute for, or compensate for, failure to honour that basic treaty obligation.

And sixth, apply the objectives of UN80 coherently across the UN system – given that some decisions will be made by the governing bodies of various UN entities rather than here in the General Assembly.

My own experience as Head of Government has shown me that whole-of-
government positions are not easy to secure. That makes consistency more important, not less.

Excellences,

Les États Membres reconnaissent que les arguments en faveur de la réforme sont solides.

En tant qu’acteurs moteurs de l’Initiative ONU80, vous en déterminerez les principaux résultats.

Vous pouvez compter sur notre plein appui.

Le Secrétariat continuera à vous livrer les informations, les données et les analyses permettant d’éclairer votre prise de décisions.

Parallèlement, je m’attacherai à poursuivre la mise en œuvre des mesures qui relèvent de ma compétence en tant que Secrétaire général.

Mener à bien l’Initiative ONU80 est une responsabilité partagée.

Le changement est inévitable.

Nous sommes toutefois face à un choix entre une réforme stratégique et planifiée ou, au contraire, des changements laissés au hasard, coûteux et dictées par des évènements échappant à tout contrôle.

L’initiative ONU80 reflète pleinement notre engagement, notre volonté et notre capacité de nous adapter.

Nous le faisons en gardant résolument à l’esprit l’objectif auquel tout processus de réforme doit répondre : agir au service des États et des populations, en veillant à obtenir les résultats dont elles ont besoin, avec agilité, cohérence et en optimisant au mieux les ressources.

Nous devons honorer cet engagement.

Je vous remercie.