Keeping the Promise is the latest edition of the Financing the United Nations Development System series. Drawing on  high-quality, disaggregated data, it provides a compre hensive overview of funding trends and flows across the UN system, supporting evidence-based policymaking, accountability, transparency, public trust, and international cooperation.

Part One examines funding sources, allocation patterns, and emerging challenges, with the aim of supporting informed decision-making and contributing to more coherent and predictable funding arrangements for implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Covering recent trends across the UN system, it incorporates preliminary data for 2025. 

Part Two, the Marketplace of ideas, brings together expert contributions examining the conditions shaping UN financing and exploring approaches to improving the quality of funding. Collectively, the articles consider how the UN system can build more resilient, effective and sustainable financing in a period of exceptional pressure.

Previous editions have highlighted a growing sense of urgency, driven by the escalating climate crisis, increasingly complex armed conflicts, deepening geopolitical divisions and distrust, and widening inequalities in income, wealth and opportunity. That urgency is even more acute in 2026. The gap between global needs and the resources available to address them is reaching alarming levels, while the multilateral system is simultaneously under pressure in terms of political support, legitimacy and funding. 

Yet even in times of crisis, and perhaps especially then, there are opportunities for reflection, change and transformation. The collective nature of the United Nations’ work means that its success depends on the active support and meaningful collaboration of Member States first and foremost, together with civil society, the private sector, academia, parliamentarians and other stakeholders through inclusive engagement and partnerships. 

These realities frame the central theme of this 12th edition: Keeping the Promise. The title reflects where the world stands today: at a critical juncture, facing financial and political choices with profound implications for people, planet and prosperity. 

The United Nations system can play a crucial role in responding to these challenges if it is equipped with adequate and appropriate forms of funding. Other political and institutional decisions will also be necessary; this report focuses specifically on how funding affects the effectiveness of the UN system. 

The financing pressures summarised on the following pages give urgency to this question. They point not only to declining resources, but also to the quality, predictability and concentration of funding, and to the importance of strengthening cooperation rather than competition within the UN system. 

The past year marked two significant milestones for the United Nations; the challenge in 2026 is to translate those commitments into action. In July 2025, world leaders adopt ed the Sevilla Commitment: a renewed global financing framework building on the 2002 Monterrey Consensus, the 2008 Doha Declaration, the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Pact for the Future. The Sevilla Commitment seeks to accelerate progress towards the SDGs by closing the financing gap and reforming international financial systems. It emphasises inclusive multilateral cooperation, debt relief and increased investment in sustainable development, particularly in developing countries. 

The United Nations also marked its 80th anniversary in  2025. In March, the Secretary-General launched the UN80  Initiative to strengthen the organisation’s impact and operational effectiveness. At the same time, more predictable, high-quality funding in line with the UN Funding Compact remains essential to the UN’s ability to deliver. Both will  require leadership, political action and renewed commitment to the UN Charter from all partners. 

Against this backdrop, Member States have a unique opportunity to rally behind our United Nations, deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, and advance the principles of the UN Funding Compact, including by strengthening the quality funding that underpins it. 

The choice is ours to keep the promise.