Afrique

Plusieurs maisons du quartier Plateau 1 à Mont-Ngafula (Kinshasa) sont ravagées depuis 2022 par un ravin. Selon les témoignages, aucun dispositif n’a été mis en place par le Gouvernement pour arrêter l’avancée de cette érosion. 

Pour les habitants, chaque jour qui passe sans action rapproche un peu plus le quartier d’une catastrophe. 

L'administration Trump a exercé une pression économique énorme sur le gouvernement communiste de l'île.

Depuis l'effondrement mortel de l'auvent de la gare de Novi Sad, le 1er novembre 2024, la Serbie se soulève contre la corruption meurtrière du régime du président Vučić et pour le respect de l'État de droit. Cette exigence de justice menée par les étudiants a gagné tout le pays. Suivez les dernières informations en temps réel et en accès libre.

- Le fil de l'Info / Gratuit, Courrier des Balkans, Vucic, Serbie, Politique, Société

La situation sécuritaire demeure tendue ce lundi 25 mai dans plusieurs localités des territoires de Masisi et Rutshuru, au Nord-Kivu, au lendemain de frappes aériennes attribuées à des drones militaires. Ces attaques ont notamment visé Rubaya et Rumangabo, dans un contexte de combats intenses qui se poursuivent depuis plus d’une semaine dans la région.

Ignoring the economic realities of new taxes breeds distrust and will only make it harder to create a genuine fiscal union

À Dakar, la population réagit au limogeage du Premier ministre Ousmane Sonko par le président Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Porté au pouvoir en avril 2024 par une immense vague d'espoir, le duo exécutif se sépare après plusieurs mois de tensions internes.

Ce 20 mai, à Beijing, Xi Jinping et Vladimir Poutine se sont rencontrés au Grand Palais du Peuple. Une rencontre de plus, dira-t-on, la 25e visite de Poutine en Chine. Mais une décision, ce jour-là, mérite qu'on s'y attarde : les deux chefs d'État ont convenu de reconduire le Traité de bon voisinage, d'amitié et de coopération sino-russe. Signé il y a 25 ans. Toujours en vigueur. Et désormais prolongé.

Les deux présidents ont signé mercredi à Beijing une déclaration conjointe visant à renforcer la coordination stratégique globale et à approfondir les relations de bon voisinage et de coopération amicale entre les deux pays.

Pourquoi ce traité de bon voisinage compte ? Soyons honnêtes : en Europe, on parle surtout de la dimension stratégique du couple Chine-Russie. Ces lectures ne sont pas absurdes. Mais elles passent à côté du fait suivant : la relation sino-russe ne repose pas, et n'a jamais reposé, sur une alliance militaire. Elle repose sur un traité de bon voisinage. Ce n'est pas la même architecture. Une alliance fige des engagements de défense mutuelle. Un traité de voisinage organise la coexistence durable de deux puissances qui partagent 4 200 kilomètres de frontière. C'est moins spectaculaire. C'est aussi beaucoup plus stable.

Et c'est ce que Xi Jinping a souligné aujourd'hui. Pour lui, dans un monde où l'ordre international se fragilise, ce traité n'est pas un vestige des années 2000 : il est une réponse. Une réponse à la tentation du retour aux rapports de force bruts entre grandes puissances.

Trois éléments à retenir de cette journée. Premièrement, la profondeur de la relation. Trente ans de partenariat stratégique, 25 ans de traité, 25 visites de Poutine en Chine. Cette relation s'inscrit dans la durée, bien au-delà des crises récentes. Les analyses qui la lisent uniquement à travers le prisme de l'actualité immédiate manquent la perspective.

Deuxièmement, le vocabulaire utilisé par Xi. Il a parlé de coordination stratégique « dos à dos » — « back to back ». L'image est précise : deux puissances qui coopèrent, mais qui regardent dans des directions différentes. Ce n'est pas la formation d'un bloc. C'est l'inverse : préserver son autonomie tout en sachant qu'on n'est pas seul.

Troisièmement, le cadre global. Xi a insisté sur un point souvent négligé : la Chine et la Russie sont toutes deux membres permanents du Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU. Ce n'est pas un détail. Cela signifie que leur coordination s'inscrit dans le cadre multilatéral existant — et pas en dehors.

Et puis, il y a une dimension dont on parle rarement, et qui mérite pourtant qu'on s'y arrête. 2024–2025 est l'« Année de la culture Chine-Russie ». 2026–2027 sera l' « Année de l'éducation sino-russe ». Ce ne sont pas des slogans. Ce sont des dispositifs concrets : programmes d'échange universitaires, coopération entre laboratoires, apprentissage croisé du chinois et du russe, festivals, expositions, tournées d'orchestres.
Aujourd'hui, plus de 25 000 étudiants russes étudient en Chine, et plus de 50 000 étudiants chinois sont en Russie. Ces chiffres ne font pas les gros titres. Mais ils racontent quelque chose qu'un partenariat de circonstance ne pourrait pas produire : on n'envoie pas ses étudiants chez quelqu'un en qui on n'investit pas pour le long terme. Une relation humaine de cette ampleur, elle, se construit sur des décennies.

Pour un public francophone, une dernière chose. Cette idée d'une coopération de long terme entre grandes puissances, sans alignement, sans bloc, dans le respect du multilatéralisme et nourrie par les échanges humains — elle a un écho en France. La diplomatie d'autonomie stratégique, héritée du gaullisme, repose sur des principes voisins. Le vocabulaire diffère. L'instinct, lui, est familier.
Beijing et Moscou ne forment pas un bloc. Ils prolongent un voisinage. La nuance change tout.

CGTN

The incident disabled the plane's GPS for the three-hour journey, forcing pilots to use alternative navigation systems

Au Bénin, Romuald Wadagni a officiellement été investi chef de l'État ce dimanche 24 mai. Il a prêté serment devant la Cour constitutionnelle lors d’une cérémonie qui s'est déroulée en présence de nombreuses figures de la scène politique béninoise ainsi que d'une quinzaine de délégations étrangères, dont les représentants des trois pays de l'Alliance des États du Sahel (AES).

Le Sénégal se positionne dans le secteur de l’astronomie et utilise de plus en plus les données issues de cette science pour son développement. Cette année les réflexions portent sur la défense. Les précisions de notre correspondant à Dakar Elimane Ndao.

L'équipe Wend Panga A a remporté, le dimanche 24 mai 2026, la finale du tournoi de baseball5 en s'imposant face à Pabré B sur le score de 16 à 11. Cette compétition s'inscrivait dans le cadre du Programme de renforcement des capacités des jeunes (PRCJ).

Organisé du 23 au 24 mai 2026 à Ouagadougou, le tournoi est une initiative du Groupement d'intérêt public-Programme national de volontariat au Burkina Faso (GIP-PNVB), en partenariat avec l'Agence japonaise de coopération internationale (JICA).

Le baseball5 est une version simplifiée du baseball qui se joue avec cinq joueurs par équipe. Cette discipline se pratique sur un terrain carré de petite dimension, sans batte ni gant. Le point est marqué lorsqu'un joueur frappe la balle, effectue le tour des bases puis revient au point de départ sans être éliminé.
Au total, huit équipes ont pris part à la compétition. À l'issue des différentes rencontres, l'équipe Wend Panga A s'est illustrée en décrochant le trophée. En finale, elle a dominé Pabré B sur le score de 16 à 11.

À l'issue de la compétition, l'équipe Wend Panga A a remporté le tournoi après une finale âprement disputée

L'équipe de Pabré A a terminé à la troisième place, tandis que Wend Panga B s'est classée quatrième, au pied du podium.
Les vainqueurs ont reçu des jeux de maillots ainsi que des médailles en récompense de leurs performances.

Pour rappel, cette compétition fait suite au Programme de renforcement des capacités des jeunes (PRCJ), lancé en octobre 2025 et achevé en janvier 2026. Le tournoi de baseball5 figurait parmi les activités inscrites au programme.

Les joueurs de baseball5, composés d'élèves, ont bénéficié d'une formation de trois mois sur la pratique et les règles de la discipline avant la tenue de la compétition les 23 et 24 mai 2026.
À l'issue de la finale, le représentant résident de la JICA au Burkina Faso, Kobayashi Takemichi, s'est réjoui du niveau de jeu affiché par les différentes équipes tout au long du tournoi.

« Le sport a beaucoup de bienfaits pour la santé. Il permet d'avoir un esprit sain dans un corps sain. J'espère que le sport enrichira l'esprit des Burkinabè. Nous travaillons aussi pour ça avec nos amis du GIP-PNVB », a-t-il indiqué.

Le représentant résident de la JICA au Burkina Faso, Kobayashi Takemichi, s'est réjoui du niveau de jeu présenté par les équipes

Il a rappelé que le choix du baseball5 pour les activités du PRCJ s'explique par le fait qu'il s'agit d'un sport très populaire au Japon.

« Dans le processus, il faut dire qu'il y avait quatre activités. Une des activités qui vient de connaître son épilogue à travers cette compétition, c'est le volet sport. Comme vous le savez, il y a derrière le sport le facteur cohésion sociale, rassemblement et surtout, le sport a un effet immédiat. Vous avez vu les élèves qui transpiraient », a déclaré, pour sa part, le directeur général du GIP-PNVB, Djourmité Nestor Noufé.

Le directeur général du GIP-PNVB, Djourmité Nestor Noufé, a exprimé sa satisfaction après avoir suivi le tournoi

Il a également exprimé sa satisfaction après les différentes oppositions observées au cours du tournoi et a émis le souhait de poursuivre, dans les années à venir, le partenariat avec la JICA pour un accompagnement technique et financier du projet.
L'entraîneur de l'équipe Wend Panga A, Abdoul Aziz Bonkoungou, s'est lui aussi réjoui de la victoire de son équipe dans cette compétition qui a réuni huit formations.
« C'est un sentiment de joie, parce qu'il y a eu un travail qui a été bien bâti. Je suis fier de mon travail », a-t-il précisé.

L'entraîneur de l'équipe Wend Panga A, Abdoul Aziz Bonkoungou, a affiché sa joie après la victoire de son équipe en finale

Pour rappel, l'Agence japonaise de coopération internationale (JICA) et le Groupement d'intérêt public-Programme national de volontariat au Burkina Faso (GIP-PNVB) collaborent depuis plusieurs années sur des initiatives liées notamment au volontariat national et à l'insertion professionnelle des jeunes.

Jean Élysée Nikiéma (stagiaire)
Lefaso.net

Plus de 900 personnes sont soupçonnées d'avoir contracté la fièvre hémorragique Ebola en République démocratique du Congo, a annoncé le directeur général de l'Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS) dimanche soir.

The headquarters of the United Nations with Trump World Tower looming in the foreground, in Manhattan, NY, on April 28, 2026. (SEBASTIAN CHRISTOPH GOLLNOW/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES) Source: Wahington Reports

By Ian Williams
NEW YORK, May 25 2026 (IPS)

AS THE WORLD HURTLES TO HELL (albeit in a SpaceX rather than a hand basket), it might seem of only academic interest which cipher vegetates on the 38th floor of the U.N. Headquarters. However, the choice is due by the end of the year, unless, as has happened in the past, the Security Council is veto-bound and asks António Guterres to stay on as interim Secretary General.

Guterres certainly has experience for a seat-warming position, since he has performed like an interim Secretary General ever since he was first appointed. At times when his voice could and should have made a difference, he has followed the guidance of the three wise monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil). The Secretary General’s ability to put items on the council agenda and raise them publicly are his few effective powers in the face of the permanent members’ traditional lackadaisical stance.

His studied withdrawal from influence has infected other levels of the Secretariat and allowed the Security Council to reach new lows of subservience to power. So, if and when the council picks his successor, it’s unlikely that crowds will gather on U.N. Plaza to watch the white smoke rising to announce the anointment.

That is not only because Trump World Tower looms over the plaza like an escaped prop from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but also because its eponymous owner has done so much to devalue the U.N. One could almost suspect that it is only allowed to hang on in New York because property values would plummet in the neighborhood if all the insouciant and complaisant diplomats who work in the U.N. complex had to leave.

The U.N.’s geopolitical absence certainly diminishes potential public interest in the race and is compounded by the increasing ineffectuality of the Security Council in the face of the erasure of the U.N. Charter. The guiding principle of the Secretariat often seems to be plucked from Arthur Hugh Clough’s old poem, “Thou shalt not kill/ But needs’t not strive, officiously to keep alive.”

However, the general membership is almost as complicit. Faced with the latest U.S. demand to reshape the organization before Washington even considers paying a part of its legally obligated payments, their response is to dicker about the depth of evisceration, not to challenge the assumptions. Of course, the U.N. needs reform—but not necessarily in the way the U.S. has been demanding for half a century.

Western signatories of the Rome Convention for the International Criminal Court have left their nationals, like Francesca Albanese and Karim Khan, to swing in the wind in the face of an entirely illegal U.S.–Israeli war on International Criminal Court staff. Even their home states’ declaration that they will provide government backed credit to the victims of U.S. sanctions would send a signal and some succor to the judges. A robust denunciation by the outgoing Secretary General (a lame duck and hence beyond significant U.S. payback) would have helped, but it was not forthcoming.

As the only figure who could coordinate (and heaven help us, lead) the defense, the forlorn position of the Secretary General is still essential despite the lackluster field. So, the choice is important—as well as boring.

So far, there is a growing consensus that the next leader needs to be a woman, which China has been very firm on, and should be from the Latin American and Caribbean region. So far, it’s a very uninspiring and, dare one say, “mature” field. Maybe there should be as much pressure for “youth’s” turn as there is for a woman, not least since both declared female candidates are of a certain age. The “most difficult job in the world” is not one for the elderly.

The April candidate forums at the U.N. featured four announced aspirants, but as the Book of Proverbs says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” None of the candidates offered a vision: their presentations were more like an AI-generated resume for corporate human resources.

Even the candidates who showed some signs of integrity, like the “keeping the law” bit, seem to be missing the vision thing and, frankly, professed over-adherence to the law is a stretch for candidates who want to avoid a veto from the P5. Which is, of course, why there was conspicuous silence on the hustings about Israel and Iran. It also so far guaranteed candidates who will not rock the boat for Washington.

So in a field of lame horses, the three-legged one might limp home, and that could be former President of Senegal Macky Sall, who is not a woman, not Latin American and does not have the support of his own country or the African Union. His best qualification is the traditional U.N. promotion criterion: not being remembered for anything in particular. He could fall in the East River and not cause a ripple. But he is unlikely to be willing to undergo the gender transition necessary. China says it wants a woman and has historically been prepared to stand its ground with repeated vetoes.

Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has the required diplomatic and political credentials, and she has clearly been playing the long game. As U.N. Human Rights Commissioner she sat upon a report about the People’s Republic of China’s abuse of the Uighurs, which might fend off a Chinese veto but raises questions about her integrity and independence.

It does suggest that she had acute political antennae since at that time pandering to China could have cost her support with the U.S. and Europeans—but now, perhaps not so much. Under the MAGA Trump Republicans, human rights are a now and then thing. More important perhaps to Washington, Chile’s new right-wing government pulled its endorsement of her which could burnish her credentials with what’s left of the progressive world. And her gender and Latin American origins tick other boxes.

In contrast, right-wing Argentinian President Javier Milei backs Rafael Grossi’s candidacy, which detracts from Grossi’s globalist credentials to head the U.N. However, as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), his equivocation about Iranian nuclear activities might well be negotiable into active U.S. support. He has been a deft tightrope walker, trying not to give Iran a clean bill of health, but avoiding complicity in an over-explicit casus belli to Washington, which would upset Moscow and Beijing (and may yet). But he has defied best practice for candidates by staying active in his U.N. role, which suggests he knows his IAEA position gives him cards to play.

Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan is an uninspiring apparatchik who has presided over the effectual dismantlement of U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, the development agency that had been in the sights of Washington for decades. While one cannot hold family connections against her, many countries might also worry about the optics of a secretary general whose sister is an Israeli settler in the West Bank. However, she is backed by her government, unlike some other candidates, and is a Latina, so ticks two of the boxes, and is likely to get support from the U.S. (and Israel, which does not have a direct seat on the Security Council, but nevertheless is reputedly a presence).

Looking at the heavily handicapped slate so far, it’s good that there are nominations waiting in the wings. Barbadian PM Mia Amor Mottley would be an ideal candidate, ticking both the vision and law boxes. A woman from the Latin American and Caribbean region whose otherwise disqualifying integrity might pass the Trump test by speaking English and being previously accoladed by no less than the American Enterprise Institute! However, she has just won re-election in Barbados and would probably prefer to stay where she is now.

Another person who announced her candidacy is Ecuador’s María Fernanda Espinosa, former General Assembly President, who is also missing support from her own government, but she has shown both vision and integrity and has other backers. And she is not of pensionable age.

In the end, sadly, the odds are against anyone who meets the needs of the world and organization. Their very qualifications would be unlikely to survive the whims and prejudices of this U.S. administration, let alone survive scrutiny by Moscow or Beijing. Even if Russia and China pay lip service to the international order and sacrifice their immediate prejudices for the greater good, Washington is unlikely to be so forbearing.

Overall, the question is whether the U.N. is redeemable while some countries have veto power. At one time the U.S. realized the advantages of maintaining the U.N. as a thin blue fig leaf for its actual hegemony, but it no longer sees the need to cover its rampant MAGA-hood.

U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is president of the Foreign Press Association of the U.S. He is the author of U.N.told: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More).

Source: Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs
https://www.wrmea.org/north-america/the-search-is-on-for-the-next-u.n.-secretary-general-in-a-turbulent-world.html

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Budget shortfalls could force the organization to move closer to the communities that it's meant to serve.

By JB Bae
FORT COLLINS, Colorado USA, May 25 2026 (IPS)

The $1.2 billion renovation of the Palais des Nations was intended to reaffirm Geneva’s centrality to the multilateral system. Instead, the city’s international quarter is emptying.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has cut hundreds of positions. The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is relocating core administrative roles to Rome and Budapest. Other agencies are scaling back or relocating operations. The United States, which funds roughly a quarter of the U.N.’s regular budget, now owes approximately $2.2 billion, about 95% of all unpaid contributions to the organization.

Many will read this as a harbinger of the decline, or perhaps even the demise, of the U.N. system. Yet the crisis in Geneva may be creating the conditions for a more resilient multilateralism.

Critics claim that American taxpayers subsidized a U.N. bureaucracy hostile to their interests, one lacking accountability and captured by priorities divorced from its founding purposes. There is some truth to this. However, these arguments have marginalized those who wish to refound the U.N. system, rather than dismantling multilateralism wholesale.

The erosion of U.S. funding may be doing what decades of reform efforts could not: forcing a realignment of the U.N.’s structure with its mission. Numerous proposals, secretary-general initiatives, and expert panels have failed to produce meaningful change.

The U.N.’s own 2021 Integration Review, drawing on input from over 200 staff members across the organization, found that institutional insulation undermined impact, calling for more decentralized decision-making and reforms responsive to field realities. Member states had pressed for the same for decades.

Meanwhile, Geneva came to embody the distance between those running the institution and the constituencies they were meant to serve. The compensation structure tells part of the story. Bureaucrats enjoyed tax-free salaries, exceptionally generous pension arrangements, housing allowances pegged to one of the world’s most expensive cities, business-class travel, and education grants that cover most of the cost of elite international-school tuition in Geneva, where annual fees often reach $45,000 per child per year.

One study of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) operations found spending of roughly $600 per refugee annually (around $800-850 in today’s dollars). U.N. reimbursements for a single child’s school fees in Geneva, in other words, could support dozens of refugees for a year. These arrangements are not reserved for senior leadership. They define the terms of employment for the typical international civil servant.

These terms apply to a substantial workforce. Switzerland hosts roughly forty international organizations that employ more than 25,000 people, most concentrated in the Lake Geneva region. The World Health Organization, the largest, employs roughly 2,400 people at its Geneva headquarters and operated on a biennial budget of $5.3 billion for 2026-27 before recent cuts. The International Labour Organization (ILO), UNHCR, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and others maintain significant presences in Geneva.

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When the U.N. Secretary-General’s office issued a memo in April 2025 directing Geneva and New York to identify posts for relocation to lower-cost duty stations, the Geneva staff union’s response was telling: its official statement declared the union “alarmed,” hundreds of staff demonstrated on International Workers’ Day to protect their Geneva postings, and unions defended housing subsidies, education grants, and tax exemptions as essential. These numbers and reactions reflect the insulation of much of Geneva from the realities the institution nominally exists to address.

Yet the crisis is strengthening the position of those within the system who have long called for change. The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF)’s consolidation of regional functions to Bangkok, the expansion of U.N. agency operations in Nairobi, and shifting administrative functions to lower-cost duty stations all reflect a shift toward where the work actually is. Technology and the remote collaboration it enables make justifying the Geneva-centric model even more difficult. What once required flights to Geneva can now happen across multiple continents simultaneously.

Simply relocating institutions to less costly settings, however, risks reproducing Geneva’s pathologies — insulated professional communities, compensation structures detached from local conditions, and organizational cultures oriented more toward one another than toward the populations they serve. More than simply moving offices, structural reform requires confronting how these institutions are staffed, incentivized, and embedded in the political contexts in which they operate.

A more promising direction is aligning institutions with the political support and capacity of host nations. This goes beyond decentralization and proximity to need, toward placing authority where capacity and political will already exist. Former aid recipients that have become donors and regional powers in their own right — Poland, Chile, and South Korea among them — are natural candidates for anchoring this kind of multilateralism. Having navigated conflict, development, refugee flows, and political transition themselves, they bring the political legitimacy and operational credibility that Geneva-centered bureaucracies cannot replicate.

The substance of the changes also matters for the legitimacy of the international order. A multilateral system whose centers of decision-making remain in Geneva, New York, and a handful of donor capitals is vulnerable to the accusation that it represents a historical moment that has long passed. Institutions whose operational weight sits closer to the communities they serve, staffed by professionals embedded in supportive settings, are harder to displace. What survives will be better able to compete for relevance in a more contested world order.

Geneva will survive this crisis as a conference center for highest-stakes diplomacy and backroom dialogues that only physical proximity can enable. But what emerges beyond Geneva, in the field offices of agencies closer to the populations they serve and potentially in the hands of actors with the legitimacy and experience to carry multilateralism forward, may prove closer to what the system was always intended to be.

Many of the structural problems that have long plagued the U.N. will remain. The shifts now under way will not solve them. But they change where influence accumulates, and who shapes the decisions that matter. This new multilateralism may prove more resilient, more legitimate, and harder to hold captive to the politics of any single donor.

JB Bae is an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University. His research addresses issues in international security and foreign policy, with a focus on East Asia. He received his PhD from UCLA.

The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.

Source: Responsible Statecraft

IPS UN Bureau

 

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À l’occasion de la célébration de son 27ᵉ anniversaire, le parti politique RCD/K-ML, basé à Beni, a lancé samedi 23 mai un appel à la mobilisation générale des Congolais en faveur de la paix et du développement du pays.

Dans un contexte marqué par des défis persistants sur les plans sécuritaire, politique et socio-économique, les responsables de RCD/K-ML estiment qu’il est temps pour les Congolais de s’unir afin de tourner la page des crises répétées.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Credit: UN Photo/Sourav Sarker

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 25 2026 (IPS)

The United Nations has had a longstanding tradition, described by some as a “privilege”, where most senior staffers are entitled to highly-expensive First Class or Business Class seats on trips worldwide.

But with the world body facing a severe cash crisis –and demands by the Trump administration calling for drastic cost-cutting—another privilege is likely to end up on the chopping block.

https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/senior-management-group

Speaking off-the-record, a former UN official told Inter Press Service: “On the rare occasion I travelled with the UN for work, I was always shocked by the enormous amounts paid for air tickets. I find it interesting to see that it took the UN a deep financial crisis to invite the staff to a ”voluntary” downgrade”

Setting the record straight, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told IPS: “To be clear, a Secretary-General is the only person in the UN cleared for first class travel, and since about the start of the year, this Secretary-General no longer sits in the first class cabin.”

As part of the Organization’s ongoing efforts to reduce travel costs, and in response to the General Assembly’s call to strengthen measures to promote voluntary downgrades from business or first-class travel entitlements, the UN’s Human Resources Services Division (HRSD), in collaboration with the Travel and Transportation Section (TTS), in the Department of Operational Support (DOS), has launched the Voluntary Downgrade Pilot which introduced a set of new incentives to encourage voluntary downgrade for official air travels by United Nations travelers.

“The initiative is designed to encourage United Nations travelers to voluntarily downgrade from business class to premium economy, or equivalent cabins, by offering eligible travelers, a series of additional incentives aimed at maintaining comfort and convenience, while generating cost savings for the Organization,” says a circular released 18 May.

Meanwhile, in the latest figures released in one published report, the UN spent approximately $319 million on staff travel in one recent reporting year, covering roughly 98,000 trips.

Of those trips:

• About 12,000 flights were business class
• Only 51 flights were first class

The report also noted that the Secretary-General has recommended curbing first-class travel for senior officials.

Current UN travel rules state that:

• Most staff up to D-2 level normally travel economy, though some long-haul exceptions permit a higher class.
• Under-Secretaries-General (USGs) and Assistant Secretaries-General (ASGs) are entitled to “the class immediately below first class,” which in practice is generally business class on most airlines.

So, while the UN’s total annual travel spending has been in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars, the portion specifically attributable to senior officials flying business or first class is likely only a fraction of that total — probably in the tens of millions rather than hundreds of millions annually, based on the relatively small number of first-class tickets reported. The UN has steadily tightened rules on premium travel over the years, according to the report.

In addition to the existing entitlements for travelers, such as reimbursement for advance seat selection, in-flight meals and beverages, and one additional checked bag, the new incentives, according to the staff circular include:

Rest Periods (subject to supervisory approval)

• One additional day of rest upon arrival at the duty station, with up to one day of additional Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA), if arriving early.
• The option to remain at the official business location for one extra day prior to return, with DSA, if this reduces overall ticket cost.
• One additional calendar day of rest upon return to duty station (no DSA).

Reimbursement of costs for

• Lounge access at departure and connection points for both outbound and inbound travel (where applicable).
• Purchase of “extra space seating” including “couch style” in economy class, if offered by the airline.

The circular appeals to staffers to consider the above incentives when planning official travel, ”and should you opt for voluntary downgrade, you may select any combination, provided that the total cost is less than the entitled business class fare, keeping in mind, any additional rest periods selected under the pilot will remain subject to the approval of your first reporting officer.”

How to get started

• Explore details on iSeek: New incentives for travelers: Voluntary downgrade pilot launches | iSeek
• Check out how-to guides on how to opt in;
• Contact your local HR, Travel, or Admin Office for further information and support.

“We encourage all staff to take advantage of these options and contribute to more cost-effective travel practices across the Organization”.

HRSD in the Office of Support Operations (OSO) and TTS in the Facilities and Commercial Acitivites Service (FCAS) within the Division of Administration (DOA), are part of the Department of Operationsl Support (DOS).

Read about DOS on iSeek or our website and follow us on LinkedIn and X.

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