Before defunding the UN, don’t forget UNESCO’s cautionary tale

Over the past several months, there has been a surge in proposals by U.S. political leaders to defund the United Nations. It culminated this week in the House as the Appropriations Committee released an extreme proposal eliminating funding to dozens of U.N. agencies. 

As they and other members of Congress consider this new legislation, they would do well to look back at an earlier move to defund a U.N. agency. If they do, the disruption it caused — not only for the agency but for U.S. global interests — should lead them to abandon this approach.    

For background, in 2011 UNESCO voted to recognize Palestine as a member state, which invoked the 1990 U.S. law forbidding funding for any global body that admits a country lacking internationally recognized attributes of statehood. Six years later, the Trump administration put an even finer, if symbolic, point on the matter by withdrawing the U.S. from the organization altogether.  

The U.S. defunding of UNESCO deeply wounded the organization and its programs. Before 2011, the U.S. contribution to UNESCO had made up about a fifth of its budget (around $80 million per year), larger than any other member.  

But much as the biblical Samson destroyed himself as he brought down the structure of a temple on his adversaries, our actions came back to hurt us, too. UNESCO predictably cut back or completely suspended several programs that the U.S. valued and that supported our global goals. Also, the U.S. surrendered nearly every bit of influence it had within the organization — a void that China happily filled.  

After 2011, UNESCO programs the U.S. had long supported were cut back or suspended. These include initiatives to protect legal freedoms for journalists and UNESCO’s World Heritage Site designations, which have fostered conservation and significantly boosted local economies around the world — including here in the U.S.

Likewise, a program that brought Holocaust education to students around the globe was scaled down when the U.S. withdrew from UNESCO in 2017, prompting a leader of the Anti-Defamation League to say, “America will be shooting itself in the foot by leaving.” 

Adding to the concerns, the U.S. absence from UNESCO weakened the organization’s stature as a standard-bearer for human rights, free expression and open inquiry. That’s in part due to the role of China, which has replaced the U.S. as the organization’s largest financial contributor and has increasingly sought to use the organization as a platform to advance its own interests. 

If you’re concerned about the rising global influence of China and Russia, there’s more than enough evidence to show that disengaging from the U.N. — as the U.S. did with UNESCO — is doing their bidding. China and Russia want nothing more than for the U.S. to exit the global stage. 

And if we were to withdraw from the U.N. as a whole, or even from some of its many agencies, it would be a strategic defeat for the U.S., and for the very priorities many defunding advocates hold dear.  

Weakening the World Food Program, the world’s largest humanitarian organization, or the U.N. Refugee Agency at a moment when the demand for their lifesaving services is at a historic high will consign untold millions of people to a harrowing fate. At the very least, the U.S. will have no choice but to use more of its own resources to help the most vulnerable, without the expertise and infrastructure of organizations already well equipped for that same task.  

Fortunately, the Biden administration restored formal U.S. involvement in and funding of UNESCO in 2023, allowing the organization to begin revitalizing its programs and for the U.S. to act as a check on the influence of authoritarian regimes. Two weeks ago, the Senate followed suit and confirmed the first new U.S. ambassador to UNESCO in eight years.   

Since the U.S. rejoined, our engagement has already meant increased resources for Holocaust education, preserving cultural heritage in Ukraine, journalist safety and STEM education in Africa. 

In addition, UNESCO has become an important forum for discussing the ethical development and use of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence. The guidelines that UNESCO member states helped craft were an important element of the “historic”  U.N. resolution passed in March — which the U.S. spearheaded — setting out principles for the safe use of AI. Moving forward, there will be much more we can do with a newly empowered ambassador at the table.   

That puts to a close, for now, a failed experiment to bring global organizations to heel by hitting them where it hurts most. Whatever frustrations — fair or exaggerated — many may have with the United Nations and its agencies, we have to understand how much we have to lose by overplaying our hand.  

Congress should heed this lesson and oppose U.N. defunding.

Jordie Hannum is the executive director of the Better World Campaign.