Former United Nations officials have created “DOGE-UN,” an effort targeting the organization’s waste.
The effort mirrors Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Hugh Dugan, a former National Security Council advisor and a U.S. delegate to the U.N. between 1989-2015, asked Fox News, “Why stop at this country’s federal agencies?”
“We need to centralize our understanding of our cash flow to and from the U.N. and the results we’d like to see from our participation in international organizations,” he said.
Dugan is working with “insiders and outsiders who used to be insiders” on the project. He explained that the United Nations’ mindset is to “look at outputs over outcomes.”
“How many meetings did we hold, how many pencils did we buy, instead of outcomes,” Dugan said. “Like, was there an opportunity to get peace underway more quickly in conflict settings, or to what extent are we ameliorating the rate of hunger in the world?”
DOGE-UN will ask two questions: “Is the U.N. working?” and “Is it working for us?”
The DOGE-UN report will be released ahead of the 2026 secretary-general selection.
In an opinion piece for Newsmax, Dugan said the agency’s goal is to “incentivize and equip stewardship by U.N. member states over their U.N. secretariat staff for accountable administration and management of the organization.” He added that DOGE-UN will work to “quell the tyranny of the expanding administrative state abroad in international organizations” and assess whether the “noble principles and purposes of the U.N. Charter are being administered responsibly and with accountability.”
