Countries benefiting from United Nations peacekeeping efforts may have to work with a strained budget as the global body cuts its peacekeeping budget by 25%.
The UN says this is to help address funding cuts by the United States which remains its largest donor. The US president, Donald Trump in August unilaterally cancelled about $US800 million in peacekeeping funding appropriated for 2024 and 2025.
According to Associated Press, more than 13,000 peacekeepers deployed across nine global missions will be sent back home to their home countries.
Three African countries to be affected include South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic. Other affected areas includeLebanon, Kosovo, Cyprus, Western Sahara, the Golan Heights demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria, and Abyei.
The development comes barely 3 days after the United States Mission to the United Nations in a communique said the UN has “strayed far from its original purpose.”
The Mission said it was working to achieve deeper cuts to “wasteful spending and stronger accountability, with a relentless focus on results.”
“The reductions already proposed in special political missions, the closure of unnecessary field offices, and the consolidation of executive offices, are the kind of decisions that must become the rule, not the exception,” the US Mission to UN stated on October 6.
The funding cuts mean the UN will reduce interventions such as assisting in disarmament and elections, promoting human rights, providing political support to countries transitioning from conflict to peace and limit support towards speeding up peace processes.
