UN rights chief appeals for $509 million as crises mount and funding shrinks
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Mr Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said his office is “currently in survival mode, delivering under strain”.
PHOTO: REUTERS
GENEVA – UN human rights chief Volker Turk appealed for US$400 million (S$509 million) on Feb 5 to address mounting human rights needs in countries such as Sudan and Myanmar, after donor funding cuts drastically reduced the work of his office and left it in “survival mode”.
The UN office is appealing for US$100 million less than in 2025, after a significant scale-back of its work in some areas due to a fall in contributions from donors such as the US and Europe.
“We are currently in survival mode, delivering under strain,” Mr Turk told delegates in a speech in Geneva, urging countries to step up support.
In the past year, Mr Turk’s office raised alarm about human rights violations in Gaza, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine and Myanmar, among others.
However, due to slashes in funding, Mr Turk’s office undertook less than half the number of human rights monitoring missions compared with in 2024, and reduced its presence in 17 countries, he said. In 2025, it received US$90 million less in funding than it needed, which resulted in 300 job cuts, directly impacting the office’s work, Mr Turk said in December.
“We cannot afford a human rights system in crisis,” he stated.
Mr Turk listed examples of the impacts of cuts, noting that the Myanmar programme was cut by more than 60 per cent in the past year, limiting its ability to gather evidence.
A UN probe into possible war crimes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is also struggling to become fully operational due to limited funding, while work to prevent gender-based violence and protect the rights of LGBTIQ+ people globally has been cut up to 75 per cent, the office said.
“This means more hate speech and attacks, and fewer laws to stop them,” Mr Turk stated.
The UN human rights office is responsible for investigating rights violations. Its work contributes to UN Security Council deliberations, and is widely used by international courts, according to the office. REUTERS
