U.S. Issues Warning to UN Agency for Children

By | 2026

U.S. Ambassador Dan Negrea at the UNICEF executive board meeting last week

UNITED NATIONS, February 20 (C-Fam) The U.S. government warned UNICEF that funding would cease if the agency did not reform and purge controversial issues from its programs.

“Too often, organizations like UNICEF have veered into progressive ideologies detached from national interests. UNICEF must avoid distracting and wasteful narratives that fall outside that mission,” said U.S. Ambassador Dan Negrea at the UNICEF executive board meeting last week.

“As we have made clear time and again, the United States will not hesitate to defund and withdraw from organizations that can’t or won’t deliver results effectively,” Negrea stated, likely referring to the new U.S. funding restrictions to multilateral organizations issued earlier this month and the U.S. withdrawal from over 60 international organizations in early January.

The U.S. statement criticized the agency’s use of “gender terminology that does not clearly and exclusively recognize two biological sexes” and programming on “diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI]” that undermines “recruitment and hiring decisions based on individual merit.”

Negrea said the U.S. wants to provide “lifesaving humanitarian assistance and effective, strategic, efficient, and time-bound responses to disasters” and that this requires UNICEF to “focus on resource efficiency, and adherence to its core mandate” of saving children’s lives and helping them flourish.

This is not the first time the Trump administration has taken issue with the work of UNICEF. The Trump administration criticized UNICEF last year for its highly sexualized programming. In an unprecedented action by a Republican administration, it rebuked the agency and voted against decisions that contained “gender” language in the August session. UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell, a Biden appointee, refused to remove a reference to “sexual and reproductive health” from the agency’s 3-year strategic plan despite calls from the U.S. and other Member States to do so.

The UN is currently undergoing a reform process called the UN80 initiative. The effect on UN policy is still to be determined. European delegates insist that any UN reforms must not impede progress on “sexual and reproductive health and rights,” which, according to the programming they fund, includes abortion and transgender rights.

Negrea told the executive board that while the U.S. recognizes the agency has made “difficult decisions” due to fiscal strain, it must continue to “advance ambitious reforms that meaningfully address bloat, create a more focused and effective organization, and deliver real results.”

The U.S. is the largest single donor to UNICEF, contributing over $1 billion in 2024. The recent announcement by the U.S. State Department to expand the Mexico City Policy to include multilateral organizations will be a real test of UNICEF’s intent. Will the agency abandon promoting programs that include abortion, gender ideology, and DEI, or will they stay the course and forfeit U.S. funds? This will largely be determined by how strictly the Trump administration implements the policy and whether Europeans and progressive foundations that favor those controversial policies are willing to compensate for any eventual loss of U.S. funding.

The expanded policy restricts the use of U.S. funds for controversial programs, and it seeks to establish a pro-life, pro-family ethos throughout U.S. foreign aid programming. It prohibits giving any U.S. funds to groups that promote abortion, gender ideology, or DEI. This restriction could end UNICEF’s longstanding partnerships with UN agencies like UNAIDS and the UN Population Fund, and with abortion industry giants like International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), which provide and promote abortion, as well as sexual autonomy and sex-rejecting surgeries and drug treatments for children.

 

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