KHARKIV, Ukraine — As the United Nations prepares for a transition at the top — a new secretary-general will take the helm of the organization on Jan. 1, 2027 — the United States and its many critics in Congress, the State Department, and the White House should differentiate what works at the U.N. versus what does not. When making cuts and pursuing reform, it is essential to do so with a scalpel rather than an axe. Some U.N. agencies provide great value for the investment and perform functions that no other government or organization could.
This is not to say that bold reform isn’t needed. On the contrary, the U.N. bureaucracy is sclerotic, and successive U.N. secretaries-general prefer to jet-set around the globe to virtue signal rather than pursue critical reforms. Scandals like the Oil-for-Food program, the Haiti cholera epidemic, UNRWA complicity with terrorist groups such as Hamas, peacekeeper child sex abuse, and U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s antisemitism all erode the standing and reputation of the U.N. in the U.S. That’s a problem for the U.N. in that the U.S. is traditionally the organization’s greatest donor. But some U.N. organizations do excellent work.
Consider the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
While State Department regulations keep U.S. diplomats far from the front in Ukraine and under strict security parameters in places like Lebanon and Iraq, in Ukraine, UNHCR officials live under fire in places like Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and even parts of Donetsk. Want to know what is really going on in a country? Ask the UNHCR employee, not the American Embassy official. The same is true in Beirut and Baghdad, where U.S. diplomats live in fortresses from which they seldom, if ever, emerge. And only then, under vast security umbrellas that often keep them away from the people.
While traditionally the U.S. is the top donor to both the U.N. and UNHCR, this year Washington has fallen behind the European Union as an investor, and then the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Japan. The irony here is that under the new high commissioner (and former Iraqi president), Barham Salih, the first UNHCR leader who was himself a refugee, the UNHCR has gone back to the basics of resettling war refugees rather than lumping economic migrants in with refugees fleeing violence. UNHCR also understands that refugees do not get to choose where they settle. The era of legitimizing refugee flows to the U.S. or the EU because of their social service nets is over.
Many Ukrainians initially fled the Russian invasion and settled in Poland, which allowed them to work rather than simply live off largesse. By some estimates, Ukrainian residents in Poland have bolstered its gross domestic product by 3%. UNHCR’s work in Ukraine today, however, focuses — successfully — on stopping refugee flows. Within minutes of a missile strike, UNHCR is on scene with tarps, plywood to board up windows, and emergency supplies. Education is a major factor determining if families remain or flee, and so UNHCR helped set up schools inside old nuclear bunkers and even metro stations. The net result is that many Ukrainians have stayed put and not destabilized Europe with refugee flows.
In other places, even a small amount of assistance can go a long way. Some Syrians fled to Libya during the Syrian civil war. With the regime changed in Syria, they would like to go home but lack only the funding for a plane ticket to do so. In the past, UNHCR could help close the books on refugee crises, but the cutbacks ironically preserve them.
While U.N. operations have a reputation for being big and bloated, with officials flying first class and living the high life without having to pay taxes, UNHCR salaries often remain far below those of the nongovernmental market. Put another way, they do the right thing and could teach the State Department a lesson or two about how to balance risk to put mission first.
It is time to learn from UNHCR, not smother them. Indeed, when advocating U.N. reform, Secretary of State Marco Rubio should ask a single question: How will the U.N. make every agency run like UNHCR?
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a distinguished fellow at India’s Usanas Foundation.