A Rushed Restructuring May Make Things Worse
By Mohammed Chiraz Baly
The writer is a staff representative and former General Secretary of the CCISUA staff union federation. He is also a data analyst at UNCTAD focusing on investment financing in developing countries.
GENEVA, Switzerland | 20 July 2026 (IDN) — Resident coordinators represent the UN Secretary-General in developing countries, a bit like ambassadors. They and their staff coordinate the work of diverse UN agencies and channel funding towards host country development needs.
Facing a funding shortfall, the General Assembly asked the Secretary-General in 2024 to review the structure of resident coordinator offices (RCOs) country by country, and bring forward a proposal for its consideration this fall. He has since gone one further and is already putting a new structure in place, reducing country-level economic and analytical capacity and imposing a cookie-cutter approach, despite saying in a report to ECOSOC that he has been doing the opposite, all the while leaving Member States with little say in the matter.
The issue isn’t anodyne. Resident coordinators play an important role. And the proposed regional reset will also make them gatekeepers to the activities of other agencies, requiring more analytical capacity, not less. Will the rushed restructuring strengthen or weaken resident coordinators at this crucial time?
Why the Resident Coordinator System Matters
To better understand this issue, we need to rewind a bit.
Resident coordinators used to be hosted in UNDP offices and were integrated into its structure. While this ensured a stable source of funding, using the UNDP programme budget as a means of persuasion raised concerns about impartiality.
Responding to this in 2016, the General Assembly passed Resolution 72/279 to create a “dedicated, independent, impartial, empowered and sustainable development-focused coordination function for the United Nations development system.”
In practical terms, the reform moved resident coordinators and their staff from UNDP to the UN Secretariat, within a new department called the Development Coordination Office (DCO).
The system has since been funded through a special-purpose trust fund with several funding streams, including a 1 per cent “coordination levy” on earmarked development funding, cost-sharing from agencies, and voluntary contributions from countries. The largest contributing country by far is Germany, followed by Norway, Sweden and Spain.
Persistent funding shortfalls led the Secretary-General in 2023 to seek part-funding from the UN regular budget. His proposal was contained in report A/78/753.
The financial pressure is real. Voluntary contributions to the special purpose trust fund fell to $57 million in 2025, cost-sharing fell to $79 million while the coordination levy dropped to $47 million. Total expenditure was $247 million. The numbers for 2026 could be worse.
At the same time, DCO headquarters posts, in New York and regionally, appear to have been growing.
Funding Pressures and the Reform Debate
Noting this, the General Assembly did not approve the request to move $145 million of posts to the regular budget. Instead, in 2024, through Resolution 79/258, it exceptionally authorised a commitment of up to $53 million for 2025 and 2026 to fill the gap, pending a refined comprehensive report and review requested for the 81st session.
The issue is therefore not whether adjustment is needed, but whether scarce resources are being allocated in line with Member State priorities: strengthening country-level capacity while keeping headquarters and regional overheads proportionate.
Here are excerpts from the text of what the General Assembly decided:
3. Decides to provide sufficient funding for the resident coordinator system, pending the submission of a refined comprehensive report at the eighty-first session.
4. Requests the Secretary-General to submit a refined comprehensive and detailed report on the financing of and governance over the resident coordinator system to the General Assembly at its eighty-first session, including, among other elements, an office-by-office review of the structure and resource requirements tailored to each country context.
Following the resolution, a Senior Adviser was tasked with carrying out a review and developing a proposed structure in line with paragraph 4(a).
To recall, the brief was to conduct an office-by-office review, considering host-country contexts, UN country team sizes, and individual countries’ cooperation frameworks.
The Deputy Secretary-General said as much at the ECOSOC briefing in April 2026, stating that Resolution 79/258 had been complied with, including through a review of the “one-size-fits-all” approach.
The Secretary-General’s report to ECOSOC in early June noted “the need for stronger capacities in integrated economic analysis… more tailored presences matched to country contexts; and better mechanisms to leverage expertise on demand from across the UN system.”
It cited an OIOS report that “further highlighted the economist capacities in Resident Coordinator offices, and strong economist networks, as critical enablers of joined-up analysis for country teams and governments.”
It then promised “a differentiated resident coordinator office model” to match “coordination capacity to each development context.” It said that “each office will carry core expertise better tailored to the country context across strategic planning, Sustainable Development Goal financing and integrated economic policy advice…”
From Differentiation to a Cookie-Cutter Model
However, the final structure, presented briefly to staff at a town hall on 16 June, was the opposite. There would be only three types of office configurations, each with a fixed staff structure. Resident coordinators report having no say in how resources would be used to align with country contexts.
- The Standard RCO model would apply to all 101 middle-income countries, landlocked developing countries and least developed countries.
- Multi-country offices would relate mainly to small island developing states and country groupings such as Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore.
- The Complex settings model would mainly cover peacekeeping and peacebuilding contexts.
Moreover, according to information shared with staff, the Standard RCO and Multi-country Office models would systematically downgrade data and economic analytical capacity, in contradiction with the Secretary-General’s UN 2.0 agenda, which calls for stronger data and analytical capacity, and with concerns raised privately by resident coordinators and agency representatives.
In short, internationally recruited P-4 and P-5 economist posts would be nationalised, except in least developed and landlocked developing countries, where the function would be retained internationally but at a lower P-3 level. NO-D economist posts and many NO-C data-management posts would be downgraded. Many highly qualified Global South staff in the UN system risk losing their jobs.
Staff were informed that implementation would take place over the summer, with the revised structures staffed through lateral reassignment and external recruitment before year-end—and crucially before the General Assembly would have the time to consider the proposed structure.
Does the Restructuring Match the Mandate?
So here’s the crunch. There appears to be a contrast between what the General Assembly requested for its consideration and what it appears to have been told is happening on the one hand and what the Organization is doing on the other.
For example, Member States requested an office-by-office review of the “one-size-fits-all” approach.
However, RCO staff have not seen an office-by-office review. A limited number of resident coordinators were consulted on the broad design. The Standard RCO model offers no flexibility, in contrast to the system up to now, whereby resident coordinators could choose which substantive position in their office should be international, based on country context and UNCT configuration.
Member States requested that the review be informed by workload.
Yet while a brief staff survey was conducted, no office-level workload analysis or follow-up was shared.
Member States requested that the review be informed by host-country context.
However, RCO staff were not asked to provide development, social or economic context. Resident coordinators have said they had no opportunity to set out their office priorities.
Member States requested that the review be informed by Cooperation Frameworks.
No explanation has been provided of how Cooperation Framework priorities shaped each office model.
Member States requested that the review be informed by the size of the UNCT.
It appears that individual UN country team agencies were not consulted, and no explanation has been provided of how UNCT size or composition shaped each model.
Member States requested a presentation of the proposed structure to the upcoming 81st session of the General Assembly.
However, implementation and staffing are planned before the report can be considered at the 81st session. Reassignments and recruitments would be difficult to reverse and could limit the options available to Member States.
Member States endorsed an ACABQ recommendation that RCO staffing should be field-oriented, not follow a standard structure, and prioritise country-level posts.
Yet the result is a standard structure in which most reductions are at country level, especially in analytical posts. In addition, report A/78/753 details a DCO managerial headquarters layer overseeing country offices comprising 115 Professional and Director-level posts, specifically 1 ASG, 6 D-2, 4 D-1, 26 P-5, 52 P-4 and 26 P-3, not counting General Service and local-level staff.
ECOSOC’s Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review was promised a differentiated resident coordinator system with stronger economic capacity.
Yet the Organization appears to be delivering the opposite.
It is noteworthy that in July 2026, economists from the Standard, Complex and Multi-Country settings wrote to the staff unions raising the same concerns.
Let Member States Decide
In conclusion, resident coordinators and their staff play an important role. However, their placement outside of UNDP has created a funding and operational challenge. The General Assembly is right to examine this issue and review the current structure, including its top-heaviness and multiple managerial layers at headquarters, and to consider how offices should align with country needs.
Yet the actions taking place right now at DCO, in apparent contradiction of claims being reported, may deprive Member States of that ability. The rush to restructure may weaken resident coordinators at this crucial time. The restructuring should be paused so Member States have time to give their views on this important matter and to ensure resident coordinators can better support developing countries and other UN agencies. [IDN-InDepthNews]