Due to funding cuts by the United States, Geneva-based UN organisations and NGOs have had to dismiss hundreds of their employees – with more job cuts still on the horizon.
Soon after he took office in January 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the US would be “ending funding to certain United Nations organizations and reviewing United States support to all international organizations.”
He has kept his word.
As a result of this move, several hundred jobs have been lost, or are at risk, within international organisations in Geneva.
What is the situation now?
International organisations in Geneva employed over 30,000 people in 2024; this number has, however, been pared down since the beginning of 2025 – that is, since Trump took office.
The latest victim of the US policy is the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – 300 jobs will be relocated to Rome, with only about 100 employees remaining in Geneva.
This latest cut is, however, just the tip of the iceberg; other Geneva organisations have already felt repercussions of US policy.
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For instance, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has had cut at least 20 percent of its staff in Geneva — about 250 people.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAids), one of the organisations hardest hit by US funding cuts, is reducing its Geneva head office staff from 127 to just 19.
At the refugee agency UNHCR, 140 out of 1,000 employees were (or will be) let go.
Then there is Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which immunises children in lower-income countries. It too had to eliminate 155 full-time positions after US funding dried up.
And at the World Health Organization (WHO), the contracts of at least 100 staff members in Geneva have not been renewed.
(The global health agency is facing even more losses: it will slashing up to 25 percent of its staff worldwide – 2,371employees – by June 2026, though the number for its Geneva headquarters is not yet known).
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Huge impact
These (and future) losses, which could add up to thousands as more positions are slashed, have had a deep effect on the city and canton.
According to Yannick Roulin, director of the International Geneva Welcome Centre, “this is a major upheaval. We are not facing a minor crisis, but a long-term paradigm shift.”
