The UN80 initiative is the United Nations' ambitious, system-wide reform effort, launched by Secretary-General António Guterres in March 2025 as the UN marked its 80th anniversary.
In , adopted on 18 July 2025, the General Assembly welcomed the Secretary-General’s efforts and looked forward to receiving relevant proposals.
It responds to a vital question ??
How can the UN adapt to become more agile, integrated, and equipped to respond to today’s complex global challenges amid tightening resources?
UN80 builds on previous reforms — including the UN development system repositioning, the peace and security reform, the management reform and — but takes them further. It aims to make the United Nations more responsive and resilient; better equipped to serve the people whose lives depend on it; more accountable to taxpayers who underwrite its work; and more supportive of staff in their critical roles.
It's about doing more, more effectively, and with fewer bureaucratic burdens — ensuring the UN system is better aligned to meet rising global needs with unity, agility, and purpose.
UN80 is a system-wide initiative. While the UN Secretariat represents roughly one quarter of total UN system resources, the majority of delivery sits with funds, programmes and specialized agencies. The initiative therefore proposes changes impacting the whole UN system — from how mandates are created, to how they are delivered and reviewed.
How does the UN80 Initiative work?
The initiative brings various reform efforts under a single framework, based on three reinforcing workstreams.
Workstream 1: Efficiency in the UN Secretariat
This workstream focuses on optimizing UN Secretariat work. As part of the revised estimates for the 2026 Programme Budget and the Support Account, the Secretary-General proposed initial efficiency measures, including:
● Consolidation of administrative platforms
● Relocations to lower-cost duty stations
● A range of optimizations across all pillars
These measures complement system-wide optimization efforts in workstream 3, especially for sharing and consolidating administrative services and enablers. Virtually all proposals were approved by the General Assembly in December 2025.
Workstream 2: Mandate Implementation Review
Mandates express the collective will of Member States. Over time, however, gaps have emerged across the mandate lifecycle: how mandates are created, delivered and reviewed. The Secretary-General’s Report on the Mandate Implementation Review (July 2025) identified challenges including:
● Limited visibility across the landscape of mandate and mandating organs
● Proliferation of meetings and reports
● Duplication of effort and unclear division of labour in mandate delivery
● Misaligned funding modalities and heavy earmarking of resources
● Weak mandate review mechanisms and accountability for results
To address these issues, the UN80 Initiative promotes better design, stronger coordination and impact-focused review. An Informal Ad Hoc Working Group of the General Assembly, co-chaired by Jamaica and New Zealand, is advancing proposals, with an outcome envisaged for March 2026.
Workstream 3: Structural and Programmatic Realignments
Workstream 3 examines how the UN system itself can be better aligned to deliver results collectively. In September 2025, the Secretary-General issued “Shifting Paradigms: United to Deliver”, outlining possible structural and programmatic realignments to reduce fragmentation, strengthen delivery within and across pillars, and improve regional and country-level coherence.
Proposals include:
● 色库TV and security: streamlined leadership structures, consolidated peacebuilding support, and more networked peace operations that systematically leverage existing UN system expertise
● Humanitarian action: a New Humanitarian Compact to simplify coordination, integrate supply chains and services, improve data capacity, and further clarify roles
● Sustainable development: mergers of UN system entities, reconfigured UN country teams, a reset of regional setups, and new shared knowledge hubs
● Human rights: establishment of a Human Rights Group to better align UN system efforts
All reforms are supported by system-wide enablers, including shared back-office services at global and country level, a Data Commons initiative, a Technology Accelerator Platform, joint training and research, and strengthened pooled funding.
All actions are brought together under a single , ensuring coherence across the UN system. Progress can be tracked through the .
Have any more questions? consult our FAQs