UN peacekeeping crisis: Funding, personnel at 25-year low, report warns

UN peacekeeping crisis: Funding, personnel at 25-year low, report warns Submitted by Yasmine El-Sabawi on Wed, 05/27/2026 - 18:48 The Trump administration has been withholding payments to the United Nations in a bid to push for reforms Indian peacekeepers serving with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan patrol near an airstrip in the strategic opposition-controlled town of Akobo, Jonglei State, on 12 February 2026 (Luis Tato/AFP) Off Funding and personnel for United Nations peacekeeping operations dropped to a 25-year low last year after major donors, led by the US, did not pay their mandatory commitments on time, a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) has shown. The data was released ahead of the International Day of UN Peacekeepers on Friday. In July 2025, some 35 percent of the UN's $5.6bn budget for peacekeeping was missing, forcing several missions to cut personnel.  As of 31 December 2025, just 78,633 international personnel were deployed on peace operations, which is 49 percent less than in 2016, and the lowest level since at least the year 2000, Sipri noted. And while the numbers have been in decline throughout the decade, last year saw the sharpest year-on-year drop at 17 percent.  "If things continue in this way, we could see a dramatic weakening of multilateral conflict management and the near-complete sidelining of institutions like the United Nations, due to a perfect storm of funding, political, and geopolitical factors," Jaïr van der Lijn, director of the Sipri peace operations and conflict management programme, said of the report's findings. "The result is likely to be more conflicts, and these conflicts are lik...

Original source: Middle East Eye