Geneva and the crisis at the UN

Geneva and the crisis at the UN

UN and non-governmental organizations based in the Swiss city are facing drastic cuts

Doctors Without Borders, the UN refugee agency UNHCR, and the International Labor Organization ILO are all based in Geneva. The city is the European hub for UN and non-governmental organizations. With funding cuts not only from the Trump administration, a wave of layoffs is rolling toward humanitarian workers this spring. At stake are not only well-paid jobs, but above all the aid needed around the world—and, not least, multilateralism itself.

By Fritz von Klinggräff

[This article posted on 4/10/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://jungle.world/artikel/2025/15/genf-und-die-krise-der-uno.]

For Geneva's businesspeople on the left bank of the Rhône, lean times are good times. During the Covid-19 pandemic, multinational commodity traders such as Mercurio hoarded oil in their tankers on the oceans and watched from Geneva as the price of black gold rose. The city is benefiting from this: for 2024, the canton recorded a surplus of 541 million Swiss francs, following a record surplus of almost 1.4 billion Swiss francs in the previous year (one Swiss franc is equivalent to approximately one euro). Geneva has the largest social divide in Switzerland, with the ultra-rich and the poor living side by side.

On the right side of Lake Geneva, around the Palais des Nations (League of Nations Palace), other multinationals are located: Genève internationale (GI) with its approximately 40 international organizations and 476 NGOs. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), for example, has its operational headquarters here with 350 employees. They are not poor either, even though they care for the poorest of the poor, currently spending around 25 million Swiss francs in Sudan.

Crisis? What crisis?

When you look out from the roof terrace with MSF employees at the global mini-metropolis of Geneva and ask them about the crisis, their astonishment is genuine: “What crisis?” Unlike UN organizations, Doctors Without Borders is independent of government funding. The freezing of development aid funds by US President Donald Trump is not an issue here. The aid organization acquires 97 percent of its income from private donations. They used to be based downtown; now they organize their work within sight of the UN Palace. “#Talk about Sudan” is written on the wall of the building, and pragmatism is the order of the day: “The disaster there is just as bad as in Gaza.”

But there is nothing to be gained geopolitically from contributions to Sudan. So the community of states that finances the UN has other priorities. From the smoking terrace of the medical NGO, one looks out at the UN complex in a world now once again united in an arms race. Eighty years ago, after World War II, the UN replaced the failed League of Nations. Its central political bodies, the Security Council and the General Assembly, were established in the new power center in New York, while the auxiliary services remained in Europe. Since then, the minimal humanitarian consensus for crisis areas has been negotiated in 600 conferences a year at the League of Nations Palace in Geneva.

The central political bodies of the newly founded UN, the Security Council and the General Assembly, were established in the new power center in New York; the relief services remained in Europe. Since then, the minimum humanitarian consensus for crisis areas has been negotiated in 600 conferences held each year in the Palace of the League of Nations in Geneva.

Historically, this division of labor was understandable: neutral Switzerland had lost much of its prestige after the Holocaust due to its cozy relationship with Nazi Germany. From then on, world politics was to be decided in the US, which claimed a global leadership role. Europe could focus on US President Harry S. Truman's new humanitarian branch of imperial power politics: “development cooperation.” Thus, Geneva became the heterotopia of modern Europe. Until after the two world wars, the continent realized its potential and wealth not least in its colonies; subsequently, it recognized itself as cosmopolitan and philanthropic through development aid.

But now this Geneva is in danger of becoming nothing more than a collection of empty office complexes, a non-place that, incidentally, has always lacked cafés. But for now, Geneva is still home to 32,000 employees. Added to this are the relatives, the tens of thousands of colleagues around the world, the 4,000 NGO employees, embassies, and the city on the banks of the Rhône that keeps the infrastructure running: consultants, technicians, restaurants, hotels.

Dependent on state funding from rich countries

The functionaries of humanitarianism work in the ILO, WHO, WMO, WTO, IOM, WIPO, and whatever else they are called: a bunch of acronyms that depend on government money from rich countries, which flows one way or another. With Trumpism, the global village of development aid is now having its money tap turned off. A first wave of layoffs is rolling in. The authorities of multilateralism must be prepared for this by the end of April at the latest; it could quickly affect a quarter of all employees. US funds account for 22 percent of the UN organizations' budgets – not to mention the project funds provided by USAID. European countries, led by Germany and Switzerland, are also cutting their development aid budgets.

At the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the layoffs came on schedule on April 30. “Entire floors,” reports Mateo, who does not want his real name printed in the newspaper. Thousands of employees could be affected; internal scenarios with cuts of up to 80 percent and layoffs of up to 60 percent are already circulating in case the payment freeze for UN organizations and USAID is implemented and a snowball effect occurs.

Mateo says that 2,500 IOM employees have now lost their jobs in projects in Latin America. But hardly any of his colleagues in Geneva are willing to speak out at the moment. The number of applicants to NGOs and the Swiss diplomatic service in Bern is rising.
Hire-and-fire mentality

A meeting with Mateo at the Chez ma Cousine rotisserie. The free-range chickens are produced in Switzerland; the La Budé farm and the IOM are within walking distance. City, countryside, and river merge in the Republic of Geneva. For a few more weeks, Mateo will be responsible for the trickle of Lampedusa refugees at the IOM, arranging flights to third countries.

He is skeptical about his future at the UN: “Where I could still apply internally yesterday, today they are talking about closed procedures.” The hire-and-fire mentality is part of everyday life at multinational aid organizations: “They all have the right to chain contracts. Even the International Labor Organization (ILO), which otherwise fights against such things worldwide.”

For expats from all over the world who have settled in Geneva with their children at the International School, this future could quickly come to an end. Afghan and Ethiopian colleagues from Mateo's circle are already packing their bags: “Anyone with a Swiss expat ID card has to leave after two months of unemployment.”
No sign of protests

But there are no protests to be heard. “People suffer in silence,” says Mateo, “everyone clings to the hope of slipping into a project.” According to the UN Charter, political restraint is a top priority. This attitude extends to the highest ranks of the UN missions, a Latin American ambassador explained to me years ago. Once, his US colleague publicly nominated him for a commission chairmanship. His name was mentioned in public! Nothing worse could have happened to him in his discretion-conscious diplomatic life.

Bureaucracy, social insecurity, and ducking out are part of everyday life for UN employees. Albert Cohen's 1968 novel “Die Schöne des Herren” (The Beauty of the Lord), set in the inner circles of the League of Nations, tells this story in 900 pages. Layoffs have also begun at the headquarters of the International Labor Organization and the International Labor Office (ILO), in front of which stands the enormous bronze sculpture “Triumph of Labor,” according to one of its senior officials. The contracts of 189 employees who worked on US-funded projects will not be renewed. There are no signs of protest.

Only at the fountain in front of the Palais des Nations do initiatives from all over the world continue to demonstrate bravely, sometimes with ten, sometimes with 1,000 participants. The responsible ministry in Geneva counts an average of one registration per day. Nowhere in the world is there a greater concentration of demonstrations than under the three-legged chair monument in front of the sea of UN flags. The “Broken Chair” by sculptor Daniel Berset symbolizes the fight against anti-personnel mines.

Bureaucracy, social insecurity, and ducking out are part of everyday life for UN employees. Albert Cohen's 1968 novel “Die Schöne des Herren” (The Beauty of the Lord), set in the inner circles of the League of Nations, tells the story in 900 pages.

200 meters further on, halfway to the UNHCR refugee agency, is the office of the Geneva Cantonal Directorate for Foreign Affairs. It responded to the wave of layoffs in Geneva's international sector by providing ten million francs. But the right-wing nationalists of the SVP blocked the emergency measure with their blocking minority. Geneva's Liberal President Nathalie Fontanet nevertheless expressed Swiss optimism to Jungle World, saying that the Grand Council's veto was based on a “misunderstanding of the mechanisms.”

The situation is “extremely tense,” she said, adding that the canton is doing its best to support Geneva's international community. After all, the UN is a “foreign policy instrument of Switzerland”: it is not from New York but from Geneva that the United Nations coordinates humanitarian actions, responds to environmental disasters, and steers the global fight against AIDS and torture. Now, however, Fontanet fears that the UN will be forced to “focus on its core business.”

In the same block as the city's coordination office, on the third floor, sits someone who describes himself as an “observer” of the canton's cooperation with the UN, and he is more skeptical. Among colleagues, Philippe Mottaz, editor of The Geneva Observer magazine, is considered the authority on all matters relating to International Geneva. “Our Geneva MPs,” he is certain, “are hardly interested in these 45,000 people – including their families. After all, they are not part of the electorate and they don't pay taxes here.”
Multilateralism fatigue and a paralyzed Security Council

Mottaz, a long-time correspondent for Swiss television in New York, was the first Swiss to write a book about Trump, back in 2016. Two floors below him, on the right, is the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and on the left, the International Institute of Human Rights.

In Geneva, the worlds are still close together. Mottaz sees this order, which was supposed to hold the UN together with Geneva International, as falling apart: “We are ending a historical cycle that has lasted a good 75 years.” For 40 years, the US Heritage Foundation has been waging its culture war against this order, for the white race and against inclusion.

The organization is considered the driving force behind “Project 2025,” a draft program for Trump's second term. Now it has won: “Even the Democrats in power will not turn back the clock,” Mottaz fears. Supranational structures have long been a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party.

Mottaz worked with the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) in Geneva until it withdrew its funding. This, too, is due to fatigue with multilateralism and a paralyzed Security Council: “Geneva has long been playing firefighter for New York around the world.”
The only multilateral place in the world

With this analysis, the Swiss journalist is not far removed from the views of Jeanne Planche, a woman from Valais who is a generation younger and who until recently worked for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLS) office in Geneva. However, this branch also closed its doors in 2024. Planche has been unemployed since then and most recently ran for the Geneva Left. The location was “too expensive,” the foundation told her as the reason for her dismissal. Yet the foundation had “done good work in Geneva,” confirms Laila Huarte, director of the FIFDH human rights film festival, helping to connect “the few cultural threads” between the lower and upper parts of the city.

However, the focus had been on cooperation with social movements in the Global South. Of course, Western development cooperation has always been a form of neocolonialism and a global savior industry, admits Planche, who coordinated Attac's educational work in France for ten years before joining the RLS. But Geneva remains “the only multilateral place in the whole world.” Symbolically, this has helped to support farm workers, women, and trade unions.

Even the meeting between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in 2021 took place in the city's own mansion, Villa La Grange. Today, people meet in Saudi Arabia.

A meeting with Planche and her friend Danya in the Plainpalais district. Here, below the old town, lives the petty bourgeoisie of Geneva – often earning less than the minimum wage. Some of them are triumphant: Let them leave! For them, “GI” means subsidized parasitism, traffic jams, high prices, and a housing shortage. The readers' forums of local newspapers are full of such comments. Danya shows understanding. Just look at the arrogance with which the expats want to conquer the city in English! No, multilateralism is not particularly sexy for these proud Genevans.

“But we have a good relationship with Geneva,” says Camille, the optimist from Doctors Without Borders. “We know each other, help each other, visit each other at events.” Even the meeting between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in 2021 took place in the city's own mansion, Villa La Grange. Today, people meet in Saudi Arabia.

Is there a Plan B? Philippe Mottaz, the observer, is silent for a long time. Then, hesitantly, he offers a very Swiss suggestion: “Here in Geneva, we need to return to value-based neutrality. And at the same time, we need to accept the new world as it is.” The oligarchs on the left bank of the Rhône should be fine with that.