UNITED NATIONS: Small Nations Make Largest Per Capita Payments

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 21 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations says its smallest member-states are the largest per capita contributors to its 1.3-billion-dollar annual budget.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvana Foa said that as of last week, only 31 of the 185 members had fully paid their dues for 1996. Of these, the largest per capita contributors were Palau, San Marino, Liechtenstein, and Monaco.

Foa said the 108,770-dollar-contribution by Palau, a country with a population of 16,661 people, meant that each of its citizens was paying 6.53 dollars to the United Nations’ regular budget.

By contrast, France was paying 1.19 dollars for each of its citizens, the United States, 1.28 dollars, Japan, 1.34 dollars, Germany, 1.20 dollars, and Britain, about 99 cents.

Of the smaller nations, San Marino, with a population of some 24,000 people, pays 108,770 dollars annually, making its per capita contribution 4.47 dollars per citizen. Liechtenstein’s assessment is 3.55 dollars, and Monaco’s 3.45 dollars. Both countries also pay 108,770 dollars to the regular budget.

“The contributions of small countries do not look like a lot of money, but they really are,” Foa said.

According to the payment scale, the United States should contribute the largest sum to the 1996 regular U.N. budget (25 percent). Japan is to pay 15.43 percent, Germany 9.04 percent, France 6.40 percent, Britain 5.31 percent, and Italy 5.19 percent.

But the United Nations is in financial crisis, precipitated by the non-payment of dues. As of Dec. 31, arrears totalled some 2.3 billion dollars — 500 million dollars higher than 1994 and 800 million dollars higher than 1992. More than 1.1 billion dollars was owed by the United States alone.

“The U.S. shortfall in payments is very severe,” U.N. Under- Secretary-GEneral Joseph Connor said last month, adding that only 94 countries had paid their dues in full last year, with 22 states making no payments at all.

Seeking a long-term solution to the world body’s ongoing financial crisis, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali last month called for a change in the scale of assessments which stipulates how much each of the member-states pays.

The scale is based is the “real capacity” of members to pay. The General Assembly has fixed a maximum of 25 percent of the budget for any one contributor and a minimum of 0.001 percent — the amount paid by most developing nations.

A change in the scale would mean that the newly industrialised countries of Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, may be called upon to pay more.

“The realities of international relations today differ from those which pertained at the time of the United Nations’ founding,” Boutros-Ghali said. “The scale of assessments should reflect current political and economic realities.”

The current financial crisis has “brought the United Nations to the edge of insolvency,” Boutros-Ghali said. “The Organisation is totally dependent on cash inflows from member states’s assessments to provide liquidity.”

The Secretary-General also proposed special General Assembly discussions on the financial crisis.

John Whitehead, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state, wrote to Boutros-Ghali last month, expressing embarrassment that his country “refuses to pay its dues to the United Nations.”

Noting that the 1.1 billion dollars in Washington’s arrears amounted to about 4.40 dollars per U.S. citizen, Whitehead enclosed his personal check for 44 dollars on behalf of himself, his wife, and their eight children.

Whitehead conceded that his cheque would not solve the crisis but that his action should send a signal to the U.S. Congress which, he said, “seems not to realise that this is a treaty obligation and that we have no right to refuse to pay up.”