UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OCHA - U.S. Mission at Geneva joint press conference

[Other language spoken]

My name is Tressa Finnerty.

I'm the charged affairs here at the US Mission to the United Nations and International Organisations in Geneva.

Welcome and to all.

First, Merry Christmas, Happy holidays and almost Happy New Year.

It's a pleasure for me to introduce our senior guest from Washington from the State Department, Jeremy Lewin.

He's performing the duties of Under Secretary of State for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and religious freedom, and also serves as a senior advisor to Secretary Rubio and the Director of Foreign Assistance.

Also, Mr Tom Fletcher, the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, OCHA or the United Nations.

It's my pleasure to turn the programme over to Under Secretary Jeremy Lewin for opening remarks.

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All right, so thank you everyone for being here right around, you know, the holidays.

This is a really important day.

And so, you know, I, I think we'll have, you know, communications documents and I know some of the folks in the media have already sort of gotten a sense of what this is about.

But there are a few points that I want to emphasise sort of at the outset, and then we'll welcome questions.

This is a really important moment because this is the US and UN working together on what a reformed, slimmed down, more efficient humanitarian complex looks like.

It's, you know, this is first of all, thanks to the leadership of President Trump when he came into office.

We encountered A humanitarian system that had grown beyond its britches, that was sort of unsustainable, that not only the United States but other donors could no longer support, that was wasteful.

We also encountered sort of a system, the United Nations, that was not addressing its sort of its fundamental purpose of solving global conflicts.

And President Trump has made it a critical part of his agenda to solve, you know, the most challenging conflicts all around the world, everything from Gaza, where obviously, you know, the president's comprehensive plan is, you know, bringing an end to that, that horrible conflict, to Sudan, you know, to Ukraine.

Obviously, President Solinsky was at Mar a Lago yesterday and all around the world.

And so, you know, I think when we think about humanitarian action, too often we focus just on the delivery of aid.

But what's most important is really that peacemaking.

So President Trump came into office and said, and he said this in the floor of the United Nations in September.

He said, you know, the United Nations has such incredible promise and the United States founded that, you know, helped found the United Nations and and has been its largest funder for for many decades.

And we're incredibly proud of that.

But at the same time, it hasn't been living up to its promise.

And so I think today, you know, this is focused on the humanitarian sector and the types of reforms that working together with, you know, leaders.

You know, I just want to thank Tom and his team for all of the work that they've done.

This has been, you know, a long time coming, this reform.

I mean, many of you will try to focus on the numbers first and foremost.

But I think that's less important than the new model that we're announcing here today, which I think is the sort of the future of both how the UN orients its operations to remove duplication, to sort of cut some of that bloat to make it more efficient, to make it faster, more flexible, more sort of able to respond to the 21st century challenges that, you know, that that humanitarian challenges that that the world faces.

But also the way that we fund the UN system to make it more accountable, to have, you know, more insight into what they're doing, to be able to have more input to correct, you know, things when they get off off base.

Make sure that funding is advancing American National interests.

That's, you know, efficient, that's delivering real life saving impact and to reorient the humanitarian complex on that life saving impact and that core life saving work.

And so, you know, those reforms that this is going to be a long process.

There are going to be many people that are going to be upset, which is what happens whenever you do any reform.

But we are really committed to this.

And we think this is the first step in really accomplishing what's a, a very needed structural change that's going to allow the UN to to deliver on that incredible promise in a, in a new and better way going forward.

So, you know, with that, I'll turn it over to Tom and then welcome questions about what exactly we're announcing and and how this is going to change the future of humanitarian action and the way that the US leads and engages in the UN system.

Well, thank you so much, Jeremy, and thank you, colleagues, for being here on this cold December day.

I want to start by paying tribute to the humanitarian movement for all their work over this last year.

It's been a very, very tough, tough year for everyone engaged in humanitarian action, but we've come through it well.

And I'm feeling particularly with this announcement today, more optimistic about getting out there and saving 10s of millions of lives next year.

Over the past 12 months, I've been in Darfur twice, in Gaza twice.

I've been in Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Myanmar, Haiti, DRC and so many of the other crisis where we work.

And I've seen close up the amazing work out there, but also the the scale of the needs.

And I'm thinking at this moment of the young woman I met a month ago in Tawela, just outside of fascia in Darfur, who had fled the fighting.

She had scooped up the two-month old child of her neighbour, having lost all of her own family to the gangs.

She had fled along the most dangerous World Rd in the world, been attacked, raped on that road, had a leg broken, but it somehow made it to our clinic and she was getting that support.

And as a result of what we're discussing here today, 1,000,000 millions more will get that support that they most so badly need.

And that gives me hope and optimism.

So this is a landmark agreement.

I'll let Jeremy dig into the numbers as he's, he's given you a teaser already that that's coming.

But a number that really matters, really, really matters here is that millions of lives will be saved across 17 countries.

And I want to add my thanks to to President Trump, to Secretary of State Rubio and to Jeremy for this contribution and for the thought leadership as well as we've discussed the reforms ahead of us and how we can ensure that we maximise the impact, the life saving impact, as Jeremy says, of this work.

And let me just mention a few of the aspects of that.

Firstly, this is in support of our 2026 plan to reach 87 million people next year with life saving support.

And we have hyper prioritised that plan to make sure that it is as efficient as possible, that we are reducing and removing the duplication and the bureaucracy from the system.

We call on others now to step forward and back this plan in the year ahead.

It is a plan that can bring hope to 10s of millions of people.

The thought leadership that Jeremy and others have brought to this reform programme is also a vote of confidence and trust that we will reform and we can reform.

That the humanitarian reset that we've set out over recent months is real prioritisation, efficiency, reform, regrouping and renewal of the humanitarian system.

And Jeremy's been very clear throughout our conversations.

And I expect that we'll have tough conversations still in the months ahead that US taxpayers expect accountability.

And part of the programme ahead of us is a mechanism that will deliver that accountability for every dollar we spend to make sure that it is saving lives.

I'd also like to underline the point Jeremy made about this being an opportunity for peacemaking in this.

We've seen this surge of diplomacy in recent months.

Nothing will do more to bring down the numbers of people in need than that peacemaking.

And we need to really make 2026 a year of diplomacy and peacemaking.

We've got to show that diplomacy is not dead and that we will indeed.

And so many of these conflicts that rage around the world.

And I hope that this humanitarian commitment and our life saving plan will be part of that.

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We need the world, as the US is doing here, to get behind it.

And then we will go out there and we will deliver it in 2026.

Because of course, the life saving announcement is not the end of the process.

It is the life saving which is the beginning of the process.

And we will be held to account for doing that in 2026.

And you have my commitment that we will succeed.

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I just add one more thing, a brief explanation of what exactly we're announcing today and then we can go & it.

So in the past, the way that we used that the United States used to fund and the United States was by far the largest funder of the humanitarian complex, maybe 40% of the whole system.

You know, people quibble about these various numbers and metrics, you know, which I think President Trump has recognised was an unsustainable burden for just the United States to bear.

So I think an important part we're talking about here is how we set up mechanisms for greater burden sharing.

Tom and I have already had a number of conversations.

We're working together to get private sector donors, other sort of non traditional donors in we're, you know, going to use the United States as diplomatic leverage.

And obviously, you know, Tom's message and and and sort of focus on on doing that life saving work to try to get onto other countries behind this.

But, you know, we were funding the humanitarian system through sets of hundreds of individual projectized grants that were sort of overlapping with these various different UN agencies.

And we were spending, you know, 10 plus billion dollars many years on these various different grants.

And I think the way that that worked in practise was if a single grant had some sort of issue, then, you know, the money couldn't be moved to another grant.

Or if needs changed and you put 100 dollars, $100 million on some mechanism in one part of a country, you need to have an entirely new grant, you know, to move that money over to, you know, address another need.

And that takes a really long time because government grant making is slow.

And the agencies weren't working together.

They were competing against each other.

They were building duplicate infrastructure, all of that.

So what we're announcing today is Tom's team and his leadership.

He's going to be sort of taking more centralised control over the way that we plan assistance in these countries.

So we announced a few weeks ago our America first global health strategy, which has been remarkably successful.

And we signed, you know, I double digits.

I you know, everyday there are more MO U's signed.

I think we have a few more today where we're working directly for the first time with mostly African governments that are recipients of health assistance on a single bilateral MOU.

And so I think when we think about how we as the United States programme assistance to the UN humanitarian system, the analogue is that what we're signing here is an umbrella agreement with 17 of these country level MO us that Tom and I are going to sign that govern how we deliver us, you know, US funded us how he delivers and we fund and we oversee, you know, humanitarian assistance in these different countries.

And so that agreement is clear.

It governs, you know, all of the sort of self obligations that are going to be made and it allows us to set policy limitations to ensure that we have accountability mechanisms that the assistance is on, you know, focused on our priorities in addition to humanitarian need and advances the national interest of the United States attached to that agreement is a, a pooled funding mechanism.

And this is a real innovation that Tom came up with.

And this is when this conversation started.

When, when, you know, we, we met back in the spring about what he was working towards instead of having all these individual project ties, grants in these separate funding streams, the humanitarian coordinator or the regional, you know, coordinator.

And in a region, it's going to have the power and coordination.

You know, US funding is going to be in a separate pocket that's going to require, you know, a close coordination, you know, with the United States.

But the humanitarian coordinator, who's the person who's best positioned in that region to know where the needs are, can sub obligate flexibly to the best, you know, positioned provider of a particular service.

And they have a mandate through the agreement that we're working on to focus on that life saving impact and to maximise it.

And so this is a really, really important sea change in the way that we, you know, fund humanitarian assistance.

And it's also something that other countries can buy into because as we think about pool funding mechanisms, that allows other donors a new opportunity to get involved and come behind us and to back the type of work that we're doing, you know, it allows us to set limitations, some of which may not apply to other donors.

And that's OK.

You know, other governments have their own national interests to account for.

But you know, this, this model is going to be so much more efficient.

And just to put a fine point on it, both of our teams collectively spend thousands and thousands of hours administering these grants.

They're no simple instruments.

I mean, we have hundreds of people between us that do nothing but pushing buttons on grants.

And they shouldn't be doing that on our side.

They should be doing that diplomacy and linking that humanitarian assistance to the diplomacy, which is what we've done through our reform of humanitarian, you know, assistance and foreign assistance more broadly.

Bringing USCID under the State Department, refocusing, you know, through the reorganisation of the State Department, more, more power over assistance to the regional bureaus and sort of linking that up with that diplomacy.

Because as we were both just talking about, you know, the, the, the thing that's going to deliver the greatest humanitarian impact is if we can solve some of these conflicts, you know, that create so much, you know, greater humanitarian need.

But our folks should be spending their time working with Tom's team on, on linking that diplomacy and humanitarian aid on resolving problems that they have.

For example, we were just talking about, you know, in a lot of these crisis countries, a big challenge to delivering humanitarian need.

And the thing that makes it more expensive is, you know, obstacles, whether it's a port or import conditions or, you know, they won't, they won't let UN humanitarian workers into areas.

And we have to be working together, US and UN.

And we can bring our diplomatic heft to the president is obviously the preeminent global peacemaker right now.

I mean, his envoys are all over the place.

So when we can work together, we can bring those costs down, maximise the impact.

And so that's what our folks should be spending our time on.

And Tom's folks should be spending their time on actually delivering life saving impact, not, you know, sitting in Geneva or New York and pressing buttons on hundreds of different grants, you know, and and creating a financial web that decreases accountability and decreases efficiency.

So I think that's a lot of what we're announcing today.

And in connection with that, we're announcing $2 billion, which is a sizable commitment.

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It is not our only commitment to this project.

It is an initial anchor commitment for the tied to these 17 countries.

As many of you know, our budget process in the United States is convoluted to say the least.

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So, you know, I think as Tom said, we're going to be spinning up this new system and we're going to hold him to account.

I think he expects that as he just said, we're going to see the progress in the system.

And as it develops, we hope that we can continue to channel additional resources and, and, and add additional countries to the mix.

This $2 billion is, is, we hope not the end, but only the beginning of, of what's a partnership.

You know, I think through our calculations, it is about twice as efficient as the old system.

So in order to achieve the same life saving impact on the same type of activities in the old system, we would have had to spend nearly $4 billion.

And that's, you know, sort of not getting in into all of the different savings associated with hyper prioritisation and cutting out sort of like, you know, climate things and other sort of stuff that that, you know, is, is not life saving and not in America's national interest to support.

So, you know, we, we, we see tremendous tax, you know, payer savings in this, but you know, this is just the beginning of what we hope will be a partnership.

So that's not, that's not our full year budget or anything else like that.

I know some of the initial media stories had what I think is a little bit of a misleading framing about that.

It's a very sizable commitment and it's a commitment that we expect.

You know, you know, as you heard Tom say, millions of people are going to get life saving assistance.

I think that's really important to_and we're going to make sure that we work with Tom's Team to understand exactly that that impact is happening but.

It this is not our full year budget and it is not the entirety of our humanitarian assistance budget more.

Broadly we'll, work with Congress And once we get a fiscal 26 budget as, you know you, know the, levels in in a lot of the different budget proposals are very different you.

Know we'll, continue to work with Tom's Team and and with the secretary's team and the president On what our overall you, know humanitarian, assistance budget will look like and how much will be going through these types of mechanisms it.

Is our hope that all of the UN FUNDED humanitarian work, with few exceptions, will eventually go through this system?

Sorry for talking so long, but yeah.

I know, I know that colleagues will have have questions, but just to underline that point, this is a significant contribution.

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2 billion dollars goes a huge way to saving millions of lives and it is a it anchors this plan for 2026 where we are seeking to reach 87 million people with life saving support.

Now of course, this won't fund all of that.

We're looking to raise $23 billion for that entire plan.

And our work now is to go out and, and take that case to other donors to respond with generosity.

I should note that the UAE has also come in, in in recent days with $550 million for this plan.

And I feel confident that others will follow.

So a huge task ahead of us to do the fundraising, but then to get out there and save those lives.

So I do also want to thank the extraordinary teams who've worked on this in State Department and across the UN and humanitarian system, including over recent days and over the holidays.

You know, I have a lot of very tough days in this job, very, very tough days.

But to be able to call the humanitarian coordinators today, Jeremy mentioned how crucial they are to this work as we ensure there is that local leadership around how the how the funds are distributed in the most effective way possible to call them and tell them that they'll have this opportunity to get out there and save so many lives in 2026.

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In the spirit of austerity, we didn't go for really fancy folders or anything.

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Well, that's right.

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So we'll open the floor up to questions, and we'll start with a couple here in the room.

For those of you who are on line, please raise your hand when you have a question.

I see we've got a few in the queue.

And those of you in the room, if you could Please wait for a microphone so that the folks online can hear you as well.

And we'll start with Nina Larson from AFP.

Thank you very much.

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What this will mean for Fletcher?

And then I was also wondering how how the prioritisation is going to happen and how much, how much say specifically the US is going to have on projects, countries and agencies that will receive funding.

And we expect this to follow certain logic as the focus in on, for instance, white South African in Nigeria is that that the UN is going to.

Can I just start with the last point, which I think this agreement covers?

I think the countries that don't have those same type of, you know, it's no secret that our two institutions don't always agree on on various issues.

So you'll notice there's no South Africa, there's no Gaza, there are none of these issues where I think we still have significant, you know, political and, and other issues to resolve this year.

These are countries where I think our interests are, are broadly aligned.

And I think our teams have worked really hard together on the prioritisation.

So a lot of that is settled.

It's based on sort of need and other things in Sudan.

I mean, our our interests are the same.

We want to make peace, we want to end the humanitarian suffering.

So I think this is more of a technical question for our teams to work together.

There's a political layer of course, but I would just say that that that those questions are I think are are going to be handled on a separate track, but sorry.

Yeah, I couldn't have put it better.

And I think that's a really important point that the fact that we're making this agreement doesn't mean that suddenly we agree on everything.

And I'm sure that lots of people will have fun working through all the things that we still disagree on.

The important thing here is that there is a real overlap there, as Jeremy says, around life saving work in these crisis countries, in these 17 crisis countries that we've identified between us and, and that's where we're focusing our energy and our action in the period ahead to the, to the three specific questions.

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So the, the keyword in OCHA is coordinator and in my job title, I'm here to coordinate the system.

That's what I mandated and have been asked to do in a gentle way.

And that's, that's what I'll seek to do through delivering this life saving plan in 2026.

We have been through when we're still going through it, actually some of the toughest months of our dance downsizing process.

There are many colleagues who are not coming with us further on this journey, including outstanding humanitarians who were very sad to be losing.

But if the outcome of this agreement is that we're suddenly taking on lots more staff than we would have failed wired in, baked in to the DNA of this approach is reform and efficiency and that means maximising every dollar for life saving aid.

And I'm determined that we continue to do that.

So I don't anticipate that Otcher will be growing as a result of this agreement.

We will be seeking to work with our fantastic colleagues across the humanitarian community in a coordinated, efficient, joined up lean way to deliver the best outcomes possible.

The way that a lot of the prioritisation has been done is in response to what to humanitarian national response plans.

So each humanitarian coordinator has identified for 2026 the most important life saving work ahead of them in severity 4:00 and 5:00 and then identified what that will cost them to deliver.

And so the plan as a whole is our response to that very, very detailed data-driven work by the country teams.

It's utterly vital in all of this.

And I can't underline this strongly enough, that we must, as humanitarians, always work in alignment with our principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence.

And with all of our donors.

They will have specific requirements around which countries should be funded, which types of work should be funded, but the humanitarian action at the other end of that must always be neutral and impartial and independent.

And, and nothing in the work that we're doing together here in this partnership undermines those principles.

The key thing to your final question is that sweet spot, the overlap between what the administration wants to do in terms of ending conflicts and saving lives and what we as the United Nations want to do in terms of our core business of ending conflicts and saving lives.

Thanks, Nick Bruce from the New York Times.

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Thank you for the briefing.

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There are some big crises, humanitarian crises that the US does not seem particularly interested in funding, such as Afghanistan and Yemen.

But I wonder if you could just outline a little bit what your priorities are among the 17.

And Mr Fletcher, you talk a lot about accountability.

How do you think this accountability will be conducted and operated?

Maybe you could say a little bit more about the the 17 country funds that you envisage?

OK, So as as part of our hyper prioritise, our hyper prioritisation exercise, we identified the 28 crises which are our top priorities.

And of those, we have prioritised 21 of them.

And as you rightly point out, there isn't a direct overlap between those 21 and the 17 that the US has identified for their, as their priority countries.

So some of this work will be taking place outside the global humanitarian overview work that has gone, that has LED that prioritisation exercise, but the vast, vast majority of it is inside.

Now there are countries that are very, very high on our list.

I mentioned that I've been to Afghanistan in the last year.

Yemen is another one, very, very high on the list, but there are others too.

And we will of course be operating in those countries ambitiously as part of our life saving plan and going out to other donors to seek support for the work there.

the US and Jeremy may want to explain more.

The rationale has decided not to support our work there.

We've both touched a bit on the situation in Gaza where there may be other announcements in, in, in, in the period ahead, but it's obviously an area where the priorities are immense and where our teams are working very closely together right now to save lives as as Gaza faces a terrible, terrible winter.

So again, there is work going on outside this plan.

This isn't the the entirety of our 2026 plan, but there is an immense overlap between what the US is funding and the areas that we've prioritised on the accountability mechanism.

The teams will be able to share in days to come more on this specific mechanism that we've designed to help us track the funding as it goes through the system and to help us take much greater account of the not just the inputs, the money that's raised, but the outcomes in terms of people reached with life saving support.

And that's a challenge for the whole system.

It will mean doing things differently and it's been a big part of my conversations today with the humanitarian coordinators, the ways in which we will be seeking to ensure the system holds itself to account in order that I can also report not just to Jeremy but to other donors who also insist on this point, that we are maximising the life saving aid with the resources that we get.

Just just to briefly touch on the countries, as I said at the outset, and this is an initial tranche as we sort of work and scale up the system, it is not the sum total of our humanitarian work either broadly or with the UN.

Tom mentioned Gaza where President hopes, you know, to announce additional steps as we move into phase two of his comprehensive plan.

At that point, we'll be in a better position to talk about what humanitarian assistance going forward will look like in Gaza.

We expect the UN will continue to be a very valuable partner, but obviously that's a very different situation that will be handled on a different track with respect to Afghanistan and Yemen.

You know, I don't know if, if if you've read the recent cigar, the independent Inspector General in the United States report on the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, but it found pervasive failures to prevent diversion to the Taliban and other US designated foreign terrorist organisations.

We have similar evidence, you know, Inspector General reports, congressional reports and, and, and, and both unclassified and classified information about Yemen.

Those are the concerns animating the decision not to support humanitarian assistance in those countries.

That sort of a global decision that's not UN centric, but sort of more broadly across our operations.

So obviously we have those concerns.

President Trump will never, you know, tolerate a dollar of assistance going to terrorist groups.

You know, I think one of the things that's really important, our teams have worked on new mechanisms to make sure that if there's evidence of diversion that Tom's team is tracking it and finding it and reporting it to us so we can take action.

And we don't have the type of systemic failures that, you know, harm both of our organisations like those that have happened in Yemen and Afghanistan in the past.

So I think that those are the concerns animating some of that.

There are other countries that we will add, you know, as as we continue to get more funding onto this mechanism and we're going to thoughtfully phase it in, we obviously have a lot of project ties, grants right now.

So these are some countries where I think our interests overlap.

It made sense to sort of on board them and they overlap with a lot of the work that Tom's team is doing.

But over time, we will thoughtfully add additional countries.

And again, we have humanitarian work that's taking place outside of, you know, this hyper prioritised plan as well.

And just just to add, Nick, I mean, the just to agree, I mean, for us as humanitarians, you know, we care more about a diversion than than anyone about stopping it and making sure that every dollar of aid gets to the people who so badly need it and doesn't get to terrorist groups or others.

So these accountability mechanisms are something that we're designing together to make the system more effective.

But there's something that that we want and they're not being forced on us because we really do believe in the independence and impartiality and neutrality of of aid and we're desperate to make the system as effective as possible.

We'll come back to the room here in a moment, but I'd like to take a question online.

We'll go to Nick Schifrin from PBS.

Nick, the floor is yours.

Thank you both very much.

Mr Lubin, part of this statement coming out of the State Department today, as you know, is a warning to UN agencies to quote adapt or die.

You've talked quite a bit today about your encouragement on reform today.

Can you talk a little bit about that threat, Adapt or die?

And Mr Fletcher, I know that you guys aren't emphasising the total number here, but you know, 2 billion compared to whatever the number was before, 5 to 10 times that.

Even if this is just the initial, are you worried that at the end of the day, there will be fewer people who fewer people who need food will get them, fewer people who are sick will receive medicine and more people who could survive with aid die with with the bottom line, lower aid assistance from the United States?

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So just to talk about reform, you know, President Trump has been has been very clear, and I think this is other donors have been clear that the way that the system was operating in the past was unsustainable.

It's something that Tom was talking about, about the hard choices that his organisations and his agencies have to make.

You know, I think there's going to be friction.

They're going to be people that want to fight this.

And I think, you know, our message is clear.

And you know, I, I think organisations that want to work constructively on delivering assistance with the greatest impact, you know, thoughtfully, accountably, you know, are, are going to be welcoming part of this conversation.

But you know, there's no more, you know, the, the, the Piggy Bank is not open to organisations that just want to return to the old system.

President Trump has made clear that system is dead gone.

And so again, we welcome all the agencies that are, that are doing important life saving work to contribute constructively to this model and all of the different reforms we're leading in the humanitarian complex.

But you know, it, it, those organisations that are stuck in the old ways, I think they're certainly not going to find funding from this administration.

But I think, you know, if, if you're being honest, they're not finding funding from other developed donors.

I mean, you know, most of the G7 countries, France, the UK, Germany have all cut their humanitarian assistance budgets by like 50%, Japan as well.

So, you know, I, I think it's clear that those organisations need to, you know, they need to reform or, you know, as the release says, they will die because they, they, they don't have the funding to sustain their operations in, in that old sort of inefficient model.

I think that's a, that's a reality that's, you know, President Trump as a businessman and this administration as a business focus administration takes the sort of private sector approach to this, which is if you don't have the revenue streams, if you don't have the funding streams coming in, you need to cut costs, you need to reform.

You need to find new ways, you know, to, to, to do the work that's important to your organisation.

And that's the message, you know, to the UN humanitarian organisations.

Before I let Tom answer the second part of the question, I'll just say again, this is we do not have a 2026 budget.

This is an initial contribution to a broader plan.

And as, as we were talking about, we're going to fill a lot of that gap that the US was, was, was paying a disproportionate share of the humanitarian system by going around and getting other donors and by getting the private sector donors in.

And that's a lot of the work that Tom and I are going to work together on.

But also we've cut those costs.

And Tom already talked about how, you know, the appeals in some of these previous years were including a lot of stuff that was not life saving, right?

I mean, when we talk about we're trying to fund every dollar and then some of the stuff that's really saving lives, you know, and not some of the things that I think, you know, in a different funding environment, we're we're getting funding.

But also, you know, it's incalculable.

The human suffering that's prevented through the hard work of diplomacy that President Trump is doing to prevent armed conflict.

Those costs have ballooned in recent years because the Biden administration sat, you know, by and let all of these wars and conflicts fester and get worse.

And they said, you know, we'll throw some humanitarian aid at the problem.

But that's not, you know, no one wants to be an aid recipient, right?

No one wants to be living in a UNHCR camp because they've been displaced by conflict.

So the best thing that we can do to decrease costs and President Trump recognised this and that's why he's the president of peace is by ending armed conflict and allowing, you know, communities to get back to, to, to, you know, peace and, and prosperity.

So, you know, I think at least from our vantage point, this is not the end of the discussion.

This is as we start to onboard, you know, you know, on on to this new system.

But I, I think we can do a lot more work for less money working together.

And I think that's what this is all about.

Tom, over to you.

[Other language spoken]

And yeah, Nick, I mean adapt or die is pretty strong.

It's pretty robust language, but we've, we've had a lot of robust language over the past year and you know, it's been a kind of rough, a rough wing.

But I think the response from the, from the UN agencies and the humanitarian movement more broadly is, is we're adapting.

You know, that if that's the choice, we, we're keen to demonstrate that we are already adapting.

And you see that through the UN80 initiative that the Secretary general of the UN is leading with such conviction.

You see it through the humanitarian reset that I've described already, which has been set out by the entire humanitarian sector as our blueprint for change and reform.

Much clearer definition around life saving work, much stronger delivery and and removal of inefficiencies and bureaucratic delays and inertia and layers.

And that devolution of power out to the local leadership level to make sure that decisions are made as close as possible to the communities we serve.

So if the choice is adapt or die, I choose adapt on, on the overall number, 2 billion is a big number.

It's a very, very significant landmark contribution.

And you know, a month ago, I would have anticipated the number was would have been 0.

And so I think before worrying about what we haven't got, I'd like to look at the millions of people whose lives will be saved, whose lives will be better because of this contribution, and start there.

And we will always set out to save as many lives as we can with the money that we are given.

[Other language spoken]

Jeremy's been pretty clear that this isn't the end of the conversation.

[Other language spoken]

One, we have to get out there and broaden the donor base.

We did get too reliant on the US as our easily our largest donor for many, many years.

And it's important we continue that work to broaden the base.

And secondly, we need to take this contribution and demonstrate delivery.

And I think that's how we build the trust and confidence in the system and in the reforms ahead of us that will, I hope, bring more support in the future.

So this is the beginning of, of a partnership.

[Other language spoken]

We've got Imogen folks from the BBC Online if you'd like to ask a question.

The floor is yours.

We'll come back to Imogen, and in the meantime, we'll go to Alex Turquino from Foreign Policy.

The floor is yours.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for this briefing.

First, are we going to get a list of the 17 crises that the US has decided to fund from this 2 billion contribution?

Also, Mr Fletcher said there wasn't perfect overlap between the US and OSHA lists.

However, it sounds like there's about a dozen countries identified by OSHA that were excluded by the US.

And can we get some examples And also something about the criteria?

For example, Mr Lewin said that climate change was an issue.

Is it, is it the case that any project mentioning climate change would be automatically excluded or are there other criteria for say an automatic exclusion by the US?

[Other language spoken]

So just on the point about climate change, this is about life saving assistance.

This is as as Thomas talking about this is hyper prioritised stuff.

I mean, and I, I think that's really important to recognise.

This is, you know, there are lots of worthy projects we have prioritised on the things that save lives that sort of meet that, that those core objectives.

And just as we think about there's not, you know, there are countries that are excluded.

I mean, I mentioned Afghanistan and Yemen.

I think the concerns, they're very clear.

You know, Gaza is not mentioned here, not because we don't intend to support Gaza.

No one has done more to support Gaza, in fact, than President Trump, who brought an end to, you know, that conflict and is leading the revitalization of that enclave, you know, through his comprehensive plan.

But because it's handled on a separate track and we'll continue as we build this out to think about other countries.

We prioritised as as I mentioned, just on and Thomas, I can talk from the UN perspective, but from our perspective, we were talking about places where there is, you know, a strong overlap between our interests and the projects that were mentioned.

There's a, you know, a need sufficient to make this one of our first sort of crisis areas, you know, and then we're also looking at our portfolio of existing projectized grants as we slowly and efficiently move off of those.

So the types of things that we could replace in the short term without needing a bridge or other stuff like that.

So there's a sort of a different mindset as we think about this first phase of it.

But then just before, you know, I hand it back over to Tom on the point about the $2 billion.

I think like, you know, I know everyone wants to compare all these numbers and everything, but I think as Tom said, $2 billion is a huge commitment from the United States.

I, I would challenge anyone else.

I would love to see another country in the world or another actor step up and beat us, right?

I mean, I'd love someone else to give $2 billion to have this impact.

But I'm not sure that anyone is stepping up to do that.

And, you know, the United States is still the country that's writing a 2 billion dollar cheque.

And at a time when we have so many challenges at home, you know, obviously the, the president has done so much to contain the epidemic of, of drug abuse and, you know, overdoses and, and we have, you know, crime migration.

You know, we're trying to revitalise our, our economic sector and our manufacturing base after decades of neglect, you know, by globalists.

So I think, you know, it's, it's so important that we underline that $2 billion is a huge commitment.

And it's something that we take really, really seriously, which is why we've worked so hard with Tom.

And we appreciate his willingness, you know, and, and commitment to doing this right, to making sure that every single dollar delivers real impact.

But, you know, before you dismiss it by looking at some chart, $2 billion, as Tom said, means millions of people are going to get life saving support.

And it's also a really significant contribution from the United States that says we're still the most generous nation in the world.

And you know what?

I would challenge any other nation to go beat us.

We don't, we wouldn't, we wouldn't hate that.

You know, we want to share the burden.

If, if, if another country wants to come in and give 2.5, great.

But you know, this is, this is a really serious commitment and I think will help also set the table for that burden sharing because this is a big anchor commitment that allows us to build off of and go to other donors.

Tom mentioned the Emiratis who I think are coming back to funding this type of action after a few years of, of not funding, you know, the system.

I think concerns, many of which are are similar to our concerns in previous years.

So, you know, just just to_that Many thanks and and just to agree that I would also love it if other countries want to come in at that scale.

And you know, it's part of my job over the coming days to get out there and make that case to to others.

We will be sharing the list of the of the 17 countries so you can see all that the detailed work underpinning this agreement.

And just two, two thoughts in response to the questions.

1 Right now my teams are out there responding to climate disasters, crises, hurricanes and so on.

And that work won't stop happening.

But the agreement with the US is to fund other parts of our life saving work.

And you know, it's for, you know, our donors.

This isn't the first time this has happened.

Our donors give us clarity on aspects of our work they would like to fund and aspects that they would not like to fund, but that won't stop that important work happening elsewhere.

And, and second point on this distinction really between emergencies and the broader work of, of the UN.

My, my job is I'm the emergency relief coordinator.

[Other language spoken]

There is fantastic work going on across the UN family, including building resilience in societies, thinking about issues of, of climate, thinking about building long term sustainable economies.

But that's separate to this agreement.

This agreement is around emergency life saving work.

And my, my job, as I say is that I'm the emergency relief coordinator.

I'm not the the global welfare coordinator.

That's for other people to do and they're doing it brilliantly.

OK, we're going to try again with BBC.

We might differ on, on how well the global welfare coordinator at the UN is doing.

That's an area, you know, that's a, that's a separate point.

But I I think just to_this is really focused on one particular thing and and, and, and that's what we're focused on on, funding here and.

There are separate conversations to be had obviously.

A, lot of those other types of things are things that the president Has said very clearly the United States Taxpayer doesn't need to fund but.

Life saving aid is something that the president Secretary Have continuously said is a priority for us and.

That's what we're delivering on through this disagreement and these reforms that we're working together on OK.

OVER, to you Imogen, Yeah.

Thank, you very much sorry.

About that for.

[Other language spoken]

Fletcher, I hear, I hear what you say about countries obviously sometimes deciding how they want to spend their money, but humanitarian aid is supposed to be neutral, impartial and to the the most in need.

How with this arrangement can you guarantee that those fundamental principles of neutrality and impartiality and to the most in need will continue?

And to, to Jeremy, just to come back to Afghanistan, are you ruling it out entirely?

I'm just thinking about some of the reporting I've been doing recently about the situation of, of women and, and girls in Afghanistan.

The fact that, for example, maternal health clinics of or mother and baby clinics have had to close because the, the funding is not there.

Are you really ruling out funding something like that because it's Afghanistan?

[Other language spoken]

So on the point about how do we, how do we ensure that we retain neutral neutrality and partiality, the independence of our aid.

That's that's my job and I've got to be held account for delivering that.

And member states will will hold me to account.

I'm sure my friends and partners across the humanitarian movement will hold me to account too.

And of course, my boss, the the secretary general will also hold me to account for ensuring that our aid is always delivered in a neutral way.

[Other language spoken]

We do, you know, I would love a world and, and particularly a world of donors where we were getting perfect funding, generous multi year UN earmarked funding.

But you know, I've been to a pretty bumpy year this year.

I'm not seeing much of that funding around.

I'm very grateful to the donors who are delivering it.

But right now, I'm in the business of saving lives and I'm excited about the partnership we have ahead of us that will allow us to do more of that.

[Other language spoken]

Just to back up, the system we were coming from was projectised grants where we were picking what we were funding and what we were not funding.

So the idea that we are moving to a system, you know, I think we have more policy control.

I think we're happy with the way that this is working to give us more, you know, insight and accountability and, and sort of to affect those policy controls across the different US agencies, UN agencies through one agreement.

But the old system was still predicated upon prioritisation.

It's not as though the United States was really, with the exception of a few sort of contributions to global appeals giving on earmarked money in the past.

I think we've improved the earmarking process to make it much more efficient.

I think actually the old system was hopelessly, you know, confusing, and all of us were wasting time on all these individual projectized grants.

But the idea that the United States is putting its national interests first, you know, I think it's obviously fundamental to President Trump's foreign policy, but it's always been fundamental to American foreign policy.

Even if we lost that thread over the last few years on the question about Afghanistan, I think the president has been very clear that no US assistance to Afghanistan, you know, will, will continue at this time.

You know, that doesn't mean that if circumstances change, there wouldn't be the opportunity to to fund work there.

But, you know, for the moment, the president's direction is very clear.

The risks of diversion and and funding the Taliban are simply too great, you know, for this administration and President Trump, you know, to to allocate our scarce taxpayer dollars there.

We just have time for a couple more questions.

So we'll come up front here to Reuters and then we'll take one more online.

Good afternoon, Thank you very much.

If I may just get a flavour from you, both of the top three countries that you will be focusing on under this new arrangement.

And I just want to clarify that the funding is exclusively focused on country funding, whether some of it will be going to central emergency fund.

And and secondly, you you pointed there, Mr Lewin to a hope that all the UN funded humanitarian work with a few exceptions will eventually go through the system.

My my question for you, Under Secretary Thatcher is under that new model, is there a risk that aid is going to be coming, becoming more?

Politicised rather than.

Needs based.

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, I would say on on that point as as Tom and I both been saying, the US is not the only and cannot be the only humanitarian donor.

And so I think they they have other donors that we're going to be talking to about some of that work.

I think again, the United States attaching conditions is, is you know the way that it's always been, right.

I would think we're doing it with much more precision, much more control, much more efficiency now.

But I, you know, I think that's always been the way that it's been.

There've always been places that the United States has offered significantly more support and places that it's offered less.

President Trump is obviously making our national interests a priority on our foreign policy.

So, you know, we think that that prioritisation from our perspective is sharper now.

But this is not, you know, some.

It's always been the case that that that's been a threat in the way that the United States has funded the system.

And there are other donors that have different priorities.

And that's Tom's job, you know, to figure out which which of those donors will support that other work.

In terms of the countries that I think we're focusing on, I think Haiti is an important one.

You know, I think that's an area just just to take a step back.

I mean, there's this narrative that the United States is no longer leading the UN system.

And I think that's completely false.

Just because the president has pushed the UN system to take dramatic reforms does not mean that we do not continue to lead in it.

President Trump's, you know, landmark Gaza plan was approved, I think unanimously, you know, but by or certainly with maybe a couple of extensions by the UN Security Council.

Another, Haiti is another area where we worked very closely with our partners to get that, that, that, you know, enlarged gang suppression force together to help improve the security situation, in part to help with the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

We're excited to work, you know, with Tom's team on delivering assistance to Haiti in our own hemisphere.

You know, that's something that's very important to the secretary, you know, to Secretary Rubio.

I think Syria is an interesting example where I think we're excited to work together.

Syria is a place where where Tom has set an ambitious goal of really sort of hitting it hard this year with humanitarian assistance and then leaving because with the new government taking, you know, you know, control of, of that country and sort of bringing stability again, they no longer need so much humanitarian assistance.

And that's a tremendous success story.

And so I think that comports with the president's agenda.

Obviously, you know, we're working hard to get the sanctions and Caesar Act, you know, removed, you know, and, and, and sort of trusting, you know, but verifying in the leadership of of that country's fledgling government to sort of bring the Syrian people after so many years of war and suffering out, you know, to, to peace and prosperity.

So Syria is a place where we're working together.

That's another thing, you know, place that's important.

And Sudan, I mean, Sudan is so important.

It's it's probably the place with the worst humanitarian suffering in the world right now.

The secretary and the president have spent tremendous time, Senior advisor Boulos and others working to try to resolve the conflict.

[Other language spoken]

But you know, this contribution, some of this is going to go to Sudan.

And I think through, you know, we're hoping that we can get additional support from other countries for Sudan where there is so much need.

And that we're going to be able to link that up with our diplomatic work, you know, to make sure that we're both resolving the conflict, but also resolving access issues.

I know that, you know, Tom's working very hard.

He's been to Sudan on getting access to those places because we could write a trillion dollar cheque.

But if you can't get it to the people that you know, that that, that are in need, it doesn't matter at all.

So I think for me, those are maybe the three of the biggest countries that I'm most focused on.

Yeah, I, I'd very much agree.

I mean Sudan is at the top of our list in terms of people in need.

And just so to actually reassure you in your second point, then you know, the plan that we've developed for 2026 is based completely on needs, on the people in need numbers that our humanitarian teams in country have pulled together.

And Sudan is, is the country crisis that has the highest number of people in need, as I saw again, you know, for the second time in a year when I went to Darfur last month.

I think it is a good example as well of, of the way in which we we hope that this humanitarian action can work alongside the effort towards peace.

And, you know, I'm in almost daily contact with Mossad Bulas as President Trump's envoy on Sudan.

And he was personally engaged in helping us get the access to Al fascia over recent days, actually on Friday, that we wouldn't necessarily have got without his intervention.

My recent visit to Gaza took place with strong support in partnership from Special Envoy Steve Witkarf and Jared Kushner and the team without whom I probably wouldn't have got in to Gaza so quickly.

So this can go alongside that essential peacemaking which ultimately will bring those numbers down.

Jeremy mentioned earlier on the access challenges we have now, Fascia is a great example of that.

Another is Goma DRC and a large chunk of of this funding is going to the DRC where if we can get Goma airport open, we can then deliver much more life saving aid at scale.

So you need the funding, but you also need that access work and our teams are working very closely on that.

It's important to mention Haiti.

I'm very pleased that Haiti is in the plan, having been earlier this year, you know, there and there were a number of crises which have been really badly neglected by the international community as well.

South Sudan, where I'll head in the next few weeks is in the package.

Myanmar, which I recently said was the most neglected crisis is in the package.

Chad, where you've got that over spill of a refugee crisis from Sudan, Bangladesh where you've got a huge refugee crisis over spilling with the Rohingya.

So some big, big crises there that we'll be working on together.

And I'd reinforce the point on on Syria, where I do see the challenge this year as supporting the new administration as it as it builds up that response and resilience.

And then working with the other parts of the UN and global system, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank and so on to build the long term durable sustainable response so we can move away from the emergency humanitarian response.

Finally, yes, there is a a contribution as part of the overall budget to the Emergency response Fund as well, which will help us be ready for the sudden onset crises, the ones that we can't predict so easily.

And on that point, I think our teams are going to work more closely than ever on that.

I you know, our response to Hurricane Melissa was very, very robust Category 5 hurricane.

I think you know, you can, I'd encourage everyone to go read.

There's a Council of Foreign Relations piece that sort of rated our response versus sort of what USCID would have done in the past.

So that's a capacity we've built up very, very quickly.

And so we have the dark teams and all of that response in the US side, but being able to contribute to Tom's efforts to and work really closely together when those sudden onset crises, you know, come together, it's very important.

So there is a contribution to the surf.

I would note that we have a couple of sort of limitations that that that our sort of like law and policy dictate.

But in general, that's going to be, you know, very flexible stuff that's going to help us respond together to those emerging crises.

[Other language spoken]

And our last question for the day is going to go to Gabrielle Elizondo from Al Jazeera English.

Gabrielle, the floor is yours.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for the briefing.

Appreciate it to both of you.

Question for each of you, if you don't mind, Mr Lewin, while you are announcing this $2 billion in humanitarian funding, which is clearly a significant number, as you and Tom have both stated, there's only a few days left in this year and the US is still not paid.

It's mandatory assessed payment to the UN budget.

Can you give us an update on that?

And further to that, are you looking at the same model that you're using in terms of the delivering of the $2 billion to humanitarian with earmarks?

Are you looking at that same model when it comes to the assessed budget for the UN?

And Mr Fletcher, a question for you.

While Sudan is clearly the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, Gaza is not far behind.

You've touched on that in this briefing.

However, since no money is earmarked for Gaza in this new funding, can you just talk about how that will affect your short and medium term planning for your humanitarian efforts in Gaza and the wider OPT?

[Other language spoken]

If I may, just on Gaza, the United States approved, I think more more than $300 million.

We didn't, you know, do a public announcement on this or comms people will be upset at me about mentioning this after the, you know, president's comprehensive plan put into effect to give pipeline to the UN agencies.

So again, as we think about what you when the when the president announces the next phase, we will be working, you know, to get additional donors in and to do pooled funding and have a separate mechanism for that.

But we are in very close coordination to make sure that there's not a pipeline break, that there's adequate funding to ensure that the important life saving work in Gaza remains ongoing consistent with the president's plan and its emphasis on ensuring that that that needs of, you know, the people of Gaza are met.

So I would just, you know, say that again, there are additional contributions that are made outside of this and we're closely tracking that pipeline.

In the case of Gaza, specifically on the question about the regular budget dues, this is a quirk of our appropriations law, but the UN regular budget dues are paid out of an account called contributions to International Organisation, which is actually technically not foreign assistance.

It's in a different title of our of our budget.

So on the UN regular budget funding, we're really waiting for the 2026 appropriations.

Normally, you know, we would have had a 20 fiscal 26 appropriation in September.

Obviously we have a short term CR and so we're, you know, we're hoping in January we'll get a full, full year appropriation.

But that's a, a very different model and assessments are just structured very differently.

I think, you know, as Ambassador Waltz has been talking about, there's a separate set of reforms, you know, similar in nature that the United States expects the UN to make, you know, the SG to make at the, at the sort of secretariat level and other and elsewhere about cutting costs and duplication and other things that will be associated with the regular budget.

But that's a, that's a separate, you know, account mechanism that that's, that's funded in a very different way.

And, and of course, you know, we're following those conversations very, very closely and, you know, very, very important and urgent that we, that we have a resolution of those issues around the regular budget.

But as Jeremy says, it's very separate to this conversation on the emergency humanitarian response.

[Other language spoken]

I mean, you've, you've, you've heard me often, I'm sure on, on Gaza.

We've just moved through that 60 day plan that I announced in response to President Trump's 20 point plan, you know, which with at the heart of it Aun humanitarian effort.

I was in Shama Sheikh supporting the president and the secretary general and others when they set that plan out, and it has made a huge difference.

You know, we're feeding over 1,000,000 people a day in Gaza right now, which is a complete game changer from before the deal when we were facing so many restrictions.

[Other language spoken]

Of course we do.

And we need to get more crossings open.

We need to get more of the NGOs into Gaza delivering on the ground.

There's a massive job ahead, of course, around rebuilding the health and education sector, even before we get on to the massive challenges of the next phase around reconstructing Gaza.

So huge work ahead there.

But the conversation, the dialogue, the, the partnership that we've had since that ceasefire deal with our American colleagues has helped us move immense amount of aid in and it really has been a game changer.

My big concern right now is around shelter for the winter.

I think we can all see the devastation for people in Gaza right now with the heavy rains that they're facing.

But we're working on that day in, day out and our teams on the ground are in close contact with our American colleagues working on those issues as well.

Let's, let's wait and see what announcements are coming out in the in the coming weeks.

This is obviously a major priority for the president and the administration.

And of course, we continue to call on other donors to step up as well and continue to support that that life saving surge of support into Gaza that is so badly needed.

[Other language spoken]

And with that, we've come to the end of our conference here.

I'd like to thank everybody for dialling in and everybody who joined us today in person.

And thank you, of course, to our speakers for your day.

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, I have a new appreciation for the secretaries to our press conference by himself the other day.

OCHA - U.S. Mission at Geneva joint press conference - 29 December 2025