2025/019: AEWA Trust Fund Liquidity Crisis

The AEWA Secretariat wishes to inform the Parties that for the first time in its history, an AEWA Trust Fund liquidity crisis threatens the ability of the Secretariat to sustain operations and fulfil its mandate. This liquidity crisis is the result of three main factors.

In the first place, the delay in payment of certain annual assessed contributions for 2025 that are not yet received, even though the payment deadline set by Resolution 8.12 is 30 June of the year to which they relate. Early September these represented above 40% of the adopted budget. We would like to remind Parties that the Secretariat updates every week the status of the contributions to the general Trust Fund.

Further to that, the use of standard salary costs for Secretariat staff positions in MOP-approved budgets as opposed to higher real salary costs also results in a structural deficit which could not be covered, because during the 2023-2025 triennium salary costs increased substantially

Finally, Parties with arrears of one or more years contributed to the current budgetary difficulties, because these lacking revenues were offset by withdrawals from the general Trust Fund, which led to its gradual depletion and prevented its proper replenishment.

The immediate measures, already taken by the Secretariat to replenish the Trust Fund and limit further expenditures, are as follows:

• Follow-up with Parties that have not yet paid their annual assessed contributions for 2025 and previous years, as applicable.
• Seek a joint approach with CMS and UNEP for Parties with more than three years in arrears to recover these mandatory contributions.
• Suspend the translation of all MOP9 documents into French, given that all documents requiring adoption at MOP9 have already been translated. This measure will also apply to MOP9 daily reports.
• Complement the core budget with voluntary contributions that include a staffing component. This measure applies in particular to the Species Officer and the African Initiative Unit positions.

In the medium term, and to rebuild adequate liquidity and working capital (reserve) in the general Trust Fund, the following measures could be discussed at the MOP:

• Bring forward the deadline for the payment of annual assessed contributions to 31 January, as is the case for other Conventions and Agreements. This measure would, particularly in 2026, prevent a new liquidity crisis.
• The standard salary costs used in the budget scenarios proposed for discussion at the MOP have been revised upwards by 4 and 5 percent compared to 2025. However, other scenarios use actual salary costs. A revised version of document AEWA/MOP9.29/Rev.1 will be published in the coming days. A special effort is expected from the Parties, although the Secretariat is aware of the difficulties faced by States in financing national expenditures related in particular to security and defense, social issues, and the triple global crisis we are experiencing.
• Postpone the recruitment of the next AEWA Executive Secretary – as the post is being vacated by the outgoing Executive Secretary on 31 December 2025 - until the Trust Fund is adequately replenished. In this regard, the Standing Committee, at its 26th meeting on 24 September 2025, already requested UNEP to postpone the recruitment. As an interim solution, the StC requested an Acting Executive Secretary to be appointed internally from within the AEWA Secretariat as of 1 January 2026, which can be done through an internal call for applications for a Temporary Job Opening.
• To avoid resorting to part-time staffing - which would make it impossible for the Secretariat to fulfill the mandates given by the Parties - an appeal to Parties for one-off emergency replenishment contributions to the Trust Fund for 2026 can be launched.

The future of AEWA, the effectiveness of which is recognized, is in the hands of the Parties, while the Secretariat, for its part, undertakes to make the best use of the funds allocated to it, as it has done for the past thirty years.

For any inquiries, please contact the UNEP/AEWA Secretariat at aewa.secretariat@unep-aewa.org