The United Nations humanitarian body will reduce its staff of about 2,600 people by 20 percent, its chief said in correspondence seen Friday, citing “a wave of brutal cuts” including US funding reductions by the Trump administration.
“The context we face is the toughest it has ever been for our mission as OCHA, and the system we coordinate,” Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, wrote in a letter to staff.
“The humanitarian community was already underfunded, overstretched and literally, under attack. Now, we face a wave of brutal cuts.”
The letter was sent Thursday, with excerpts posted on the office’s website Friday.
AFP obtained a copy of the full letter, in which Fletcher specifically mentions the United States as having been “the largest humanitarian donor for decades, and the biggest contributor to OCHA’s program budget,” providing about $63 million annually.
For fiscal year 2025, OCHA had an overall budget of around $430 million, but it is now facing a funding gap of almost $60 million.
Since February, OCHA has implemented austerity measures to save $3.7 million internally, but that won’t be enough.
“We will reduce bureaucracy and reporting layers,” Fletcher wrote.
“We will become less top-heavy, substantially reducing senior positions… but have dynamic and full responses where we are present.”
OCHA currently operates in more than 60 countries. Fletcher said the latest cuts will “reduce its presence and operations” in Cameroon, Colombia, Eritrea, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey and Zimbabwe.
The global aid situation has grown dire since President Donald Trump ordered the dismantlement of the US Agency for International Development early this year.
His administration scrapped 83 percent of humanitarian programs funded by USAID. The agency had an annual budget of $42.8 billion, representing 42 percent of total global humanitarian aid.
OCHA coordinates the UN response efforts and delivers reports from the front line of conflicts “to amplify the voices of crisis-affected people,” according to its website.
It has long been active in response to ongoing violence in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and other conflict zones to provide humanitarian aid.
Now OCHA faces “tough choices,” said Fletcher, who stressed such decisions did not reflect “a reduction of humanitarian needs.”
The agency will shed 20 percent of its overall workforce.
“I know that none of this is easy. We believe passionately in what we do, with good reason,” he said. “But we cannot continue to do it all.”
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which employed nearly 20,000 people at the end of September, also indicated in March that it expects a “significant reduction” in its workforce due to the absence of American funding.
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