By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2025 – The United Nations, facing a liquidity crisis, has been threatening to lay-off about 20 percent of its estimated 37,000 employees world-wide: a proposed move that has triggered widespread protests from staff unions both in New York and Geneva.

But in a new development last week, the Office of Human Resources (OHR) in the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance (DMSPC), has introduced “an early separation programme in the interest of the good administration of the Organization aimed at mitigating the negative impact resulting from the potential need for future termination of appointments”.

The programme will facilitate the voluntary separation of staff members, including early retirement. The programme is open until 12 September 2025.

The General Assembly in 2017 decided to fix the retirement age at 65 years, effective 1 January 2018, from 62 in earlier years.

Ian Richards, President, Staff Union, UN Office at Geneva (UNOG), told IPS: “It’s by mutual agreement so let’s see how many take it up”.

He pointed out “it will certainly clear space before Guy Ryder (the Under-Secretary-General (USG) who heads the UN reform restructuring process called UN80) implements his across-the-board cuts, but this brings us to the bigger question: what is the strategy behind UN80?”

These cuts, warned Richards, will be painful on beneficiaries and the organisation. There will be no appetite to do another round of cuts next year.

“So, by cutting across the board instead of determining what we’re good at, and then shifting resources there, we are effectively freezing the status quo for the time being”.

At the same time, he pointed out, junior posts are being cut while USG positions are preserved, and HQ is being fragmented across multiple European duty stations.

Will all this make us stronger and our work more effective? asked Richards.

And it is notable that, according to a recent survey, staff do not have confidence in Ryder’s management of UN80 and only 18 percent have confidence in the SG’s leadership overall. That’s not great, he declared.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last month that UN departments and UN’s headquarters in New York and Geneva have been asked to review whether some teams can be relocated to lower-cost duty stations, reduced or abolished.

Guy Candusso, a former First Vice-President of the UN Staff Union in New York, told IPS the UN has offered buyout packages at various times and it was a popular option especially if you were close to retirement.

Sometimes they offered enhanced packages. At one time they came up with means to bridge your healthcare to your early retirement age. (medical coverage was always an important consideration), he said.

“There was a big downsizing exercise during USG Connors’ time (Joseph Connor, UN Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management) and in the end. no one lost their job. Many staff left the organization, found other jobs or moved to other locations, said Candusso.

Stephanie Hodge, an international evaluator and a former UN advisor who has worked across 140 countries, dismissed “early retirement” as “disguised abolishment”. She told IPS the UN’s downsizing crisis has a human cost.

The United Nations is in crisis, she said.

With a projected 20% cut in staffing and a growing cash crunch, the Organization is rolling out an “early separation programme” under the UN80 Initiative. On paper, it’s voluntary: staff may step away early, with benefits, “in the interest of good administration.” The stated goal is to soften the impact of future layoffs.

The language sounds fair — even generous — until you look at what’s really happening, said Hodge, a former staffer at UNDP (1994-1996 & 1999- 2004) and at UNICEF (2008-2014).

Early retirement in the UN system is a voluntary act. You weigh your options, decide to leave before mandatory retirement age, and receive a package that reflects both your years of service and your choice to go early. It is usually framed as a dignified conclusion to a career, said Hodge.

Abolishment of post is the opposite. It is an involuntary separation — your position is eliminated, often with minimal chance of redeployment. You get a termination indemnity, not a retirement package. Your pension stops growing on the day you leave.

Your access to after-service health insurance is only guaranteed if you meet rigid thresholds. You have legal appeal rights, but the process is complex, resource-intensive, and stacked against those already reeling from job loss, she argued.

“I didn’t get early retirement. I got abolishment”.

“There was no choice, no negotiation, no meaningful chance to transfer into a comparable post. When the door closed, I was offered work — but only on a gig basis. No benefits. No job security. No downtime. The workload was relentless, the protections of the international civil service stripped away. In exchange for decades of service, I was pushed into precarious contract labor, with none of the safeguards that define the UN’s employment model.”

For those inside the system, she said, the difference between voluntary and involuntary separation isn’t just semantic — it’s the difference between leaving with stability and being pushed out into uncertainty.

For those outside, it’s easy to miss how the UN’s framing conceals a harder truth: downsizing can be weaponized. Abolishment can target individuals, bypass procedural fairness, and erode protections without openly admitting to wrongful dismissal.

“This matters beyond my own case. If the UN replaces long-term, secure posts with short-term, benefit-free contracts, it undermines the very concept of the international civil service — the independence, loyalty, and stability that allow staff to serve the world without fear of political or financial retaliation. What we risk is a hollowed-out institution, staffed by overworked contractors with no voice, no recourse, and no institutional memory”, said Hodge.

If the UN truly wants to “mitigate harm,” it must start by acknowledging the sharp divide between voluntary early retirement and forced abolishment. And it must stop treating seasoned staff as disposable assets in a budget spreadsheet, she said.

“I’ve lived the consequences — and I can tell you, the gap between what’s promised and what’s delivered isn’t just a policy flaw. It’s a human cost,” she declared.

Naïma Abdellaoui, a member of the Executive Bureau of UNOG Staff Union, told IPS this programme is presented as voluntary.

“However, I heard from fellow staff reps, namely the officeholders of UNOG SU, that staff are encouraged to apply because those who do not apply early enough may not get a separation package! This is psychological coercion”.

The only criterion is age. Is this not discriminatory against older staff members?, she asked.

This move, she pointed out, may also be aimed at depriving the UN of its institutional memory, a concept that used to be cherished in our Organization.

Meanwhile, the UN message to staffers also said the early separation programme is open to staff members who meet all of the following criteria:

• • are in the Professional and higher categories, Field Service category, and General Service and related categories, including but not limited to National Professional Officers, Trades and Crafts and Security Service categories;
• • hold a career appointment (i.e., permanent, continuing or indefinite) or a fixed-term appointment (without any limitation);
• • have completed at least five years of continuous service with the Organization as of 31 December 2025;
• • will be 55 years of age or above on 31 December 2025; and
• • will not have reached the mandatory age of separation of 65 on or before 30 June 2026.

Terms and conditions
The terms and conditions of the early separation programme are in accordance with the UN Staff Regulations and Rules and other conditions reflected in OHR PG/2025/5 on Early separation programme, including an ineligibility period for re-employment.

Staff members who are separated under this programme will be precluded from employment as a staff member, consultant or individual contractor, or in any other capacity, with the UN Secretariat or any of the UN common system organizations, for a period corresponding to the months of the termination indemnity paid to the staff member.

The separation of staff members under this programme will be a termination with the consent of the staff member, i.e., a separation from service mutually agreed upon by the staff member and the Organization.

Staff members should consider any potential impact of the programme on their visa status.

There will be no additional termination indemnity payment beyond the amounts provided in Annex III to the Staff Regulations and no payment of compensation in lieu of notice. Staff members must serve their applicable notice period prior to the mutually agreed effective date of separation.

Final approval of the mutually agreed separation will be subject to the availability of budget and liquidity, consistent with the interest of the good administration of the Organization as determined by the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance (DMSPC).

The Organization reserves the right to decline or defer a staff member’s application for mutually agreed early separation. In case of deferral, the period of time during which the notice will be served by the staff member will accordingly be aligned to the mutually agreed early separation date.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 12 2025 – The accumulation of still growing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in an increasingly unequal world is accelerating planetary heating. It is also worsening disparities, especially between the rich and others, both nationally and internationally.

Unequal emissions
In our grossly unequal world, international disparities account for two-thirds of overall income inequalities. National income aggregates and averages can mislead by obscuring significant disparities within countries.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The World Inequality Report argues that GHG emission disparities are mainly due to inequalities within countries. Meanwhile, GHG emissions continue to grow as their accumulation accelerates planetary heating.

Emissions disparities within nations now account for almost two-thirds of worldwide emissions inequality, nearly doubling from slightly over a third in 1990.

The bottom halves of rich country populations are already at – or close to – the 2030 per capita carbon dioxide equivalent emission targets set by their governments. Yet North America’s wealthiest 10% or decile are the world’s biggest GHG emitters.

Their average emissions are 73 times those of the bottom half of the South and Southeast Asian populations! The East Asian rich also emit high GHGs, but much less than in North America.

The bottom halves of their populations emit nearly ten tons per capita yearly in North America, around five tons in Europe, and about three tons in East Asia.

The much smaller carbon footprints of most of the Global South contrast with the GHG emissions of the top deciles in their own countries and those of the wealthiest 10% in poorer regions.

The top deciles in South and Southeast Asia emit more than double the GHG emissions of Europe’s lower half. Even sub-Saharan Africa’s top decile emits more than Europe’s lower half on average.

Inequality drives emissions
Jayati Ghosh, Shouvik Chakraborty and Debamanyu Das argue that inequality has been driving increases in GHG emissions. While the bottom halves in the US and Europe reduced per capita emissions by 15-20% between 1990 and 2019, the top 1% increased theirs.

The world’s top decile alone accounts for almost half of GHG emissions. As the wealthy become even richer, their adverse environmental impacts increase.

Despite misleading rhetoric, most carbon taxation is not progressive, typically burdening middle- and low-income groups much more than those most responsible, the rich.

Policies to cut GHG emissions must curb excessive consumption by the rich as well as ‘extractivist’ production worldwide to meet their demands.

Profits trump public interest
Meanwhile, transnational corporations and Western governments have refused to honour the public health exception (PHE) to the World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) rights agreement, TRIPS.

The PHE compromise was agreed to in 2001 to resume WTO trade negotiations at its Doha inter-ministerial meeting after the aborted Seattle conference in 1999.

But then, rich nation governments blocked developing countries’ requests for a PHE waiver to urgently produce enough affordable tests, treatments, equipment and vaccines for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hence, it is unlikely significant IP concessions will be forthcoming to boost developing countries’ efforts to mitigate and adapt to effectively address planetary heating.

The sources of global warming are local, while planetary heating is worldwide, albeit uneven. Effective coping policies and measures are costly and generally more burdensome to the poor and middle classes.

Alternative arrangements can enable greater equity and sustainability. However, mobilising more concerted and effective resistance to planetary heating has proved very difficult.

Climate injustice
Historical accumulation of GHG emissions is the leading cause of planetary warming. Developed countries were responsible for almost four-fifths of cumulative GHG emissions from 1850 to 2011.

Meanwhile, their adverse impacts on developing countries in the tropics are worse. The Global South is also less able to cope due to limited policy space and means.

‘Net-zero’ commitments by countries do not acknowledge the huge climate burden imposed by past GHG accumulation, thus undermining prospects for a just transition.

In international negotiations, wealthy economies have evaded historical responsibility for ‘climate debt’ by focusing on contemporary emissions and ignoring their accumulation over the last two centuries.

Ignoring this historical climate debt also serves to legitimise ignoring compensation for those most adversely impacted in low- and lower-middle-income countries, who have already suffered extensive damage and losses.

This pretence is not only unfair, but also counterproductive. It has undermined the international solidarity and cooperation needed to cope with planetary heating.

Breaching threshold
Current rich nations’ projected emissions will use up three-fifths of the remaining global warming threshold for the world’s ‘carbon budget’ until 2050, so as not to exceed the 1.5°C addition to pre-industrial levels!

However, the most optimistic recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario expected the 1.5°C threshold to be crossed by 2040!

But even before US President Trump re-accelerated planetary heating after his re-election, then UN Special Envoy and now Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned this threshold would be breached by the end of this decade!

IPS UN Bureau

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