UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Told To Cut Loose Its U.S. Apron Strings

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 10 1996 (IPS) - An increasing number of countries is challenging the United Nations to end its heavy reliance on a single source for large-scale funding, especially given its cash crisis.

“It is too dangerous for the United Nations to remain dependent on a single country,” Ambassador Razali Ismail of Malaysia told IPS in a reference to the United States. “We have seen how a single country could hold the United Nations to ransom by not paying its dues.”

The United States is supposed to be the largest single contributor to the 1.3-billion-dollar regular budget, but Washington is also the United Nations’ biggest defaulter.

“It is a situation we must not allow ourselves to be placed in,” Razali said. “We have to change that. I think some kind of adjustment must be made.”

Washington pays about 25 percent of the United Nations’ regular budget, followed by Japan (15.43 percent), Germany (9.04 percent), France (6.40 percent), Britain (5.31 percent), and Italy (5.19 percent).

As of last week, the United Nations was owed some 2.9 billion dollars: 1.2 billion dollars for the regular budget and 1.7 billion dollars for peacekeeping. Of the total, Washington alone owes more than 1.5 billion dollars. As a result, the U.S. contribution now amounts to an estimated 12 percent of its overall dues.

The scale of contributions is based on a country’s “real capacity” to pay. The General Assembly has fixed a maximum of 25 percent of the budget for any one contributor and a minimum of 0.01 percent for most developing nations.

A change could mean that such newly industrialised countries (NICs) as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea, may be called upon to pay more.

Ambassador Hisashi Owada of Japan argues that the United Nations should not be excessively dependent either on a single country or a limited number of countries for its financial resources.

“It would make the organisation too vulnerable to unbearable risks due to unstable payment of such countries,” he told a U.N. working group discussing the financial crisis.

Owada said the United Nations should examine the feasibility of lowering the present ceiling. The United Nations’ criteria for payment should not only be “the capacity to pay” but also “the responsibility to pay,” he noted.

Ambassador Nabil Elaraby of Egypt agrees that the United Nations should break away from its heavy dependence on a single country. But an equally important issue, he told IPS, is to figure out who will fill the gap.

Ambassador Annette des Iles of Trinidad and Tobago, who co- chairs a U.N. working group on the financial crisis, says there was “merit in the argument that no single member of the United Nations should be in a position to hold the organisation to ransom.”

“However, if we decrease the contribution of one member state by five or 10 percent, we will have to increase that of some other member states by fairly significant amounts,” she points out. “So far, I have not detected a willingness on the part of those member states who will have to bear the brunt of the increase to agree to any such proposition.”

Des Iles said the present payments scale was valid through the end of 1997. New scales will have to be adjusted “to reflect new economic realities based on capacity to pay,” she said.

But des Iles warned, that revision of the scale was a difficult and complex task.

“Every member state has something at stake in the exercise; every government is accountable to its own taxpayers,” she said. “It would therefore be highly unrealistic to expect any quick agreement on new scales of assessment.”

In February, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called for a sharp reduction in the contributions set for the United States, suggesting the level be moved from the current 25 percent to about 15 or 20 percent.

Addressing the High-Level Working Group discussing the financial crisis, Boutros-Ghali said a ceiling of 15 or 20 percent on the assessed contribution of any member state would better reflect the fact that the United Nations is “the instrument of all nations.”

Jeff Laurenti of the U.N. Association of USA (UNA-USA) told IPS that the proposal for a reduction of assessed contributions was made as far back as 1988.

“U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz thought it was outrageous and described the proposal as a terrible idea,” Laurenti said.

Since the 25 percent assessed contribution was a source of U.S. influence and power at the United Nations, Shultz felt there was no reason why Washington should not continue to be the largest single contributor, Laurenti added.

But a Republican-controlled U.S. Congress has not only delayed payments to the United Nations and its several agencies but also slashed contributions to the world body.

U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright says the Bill Clinton Administration will ask Congress to approve a five-year plan for paying the arrears. She said Washington planned to ask the 185- member General Assembly, the United Nations’ highest policy-making body, to reduce the U.S. share, from 25 to 20 percent.

“The result of all this for the United Nations would be a more equitable and reliable system of financing,” Albright added. “And for the American people, it would assure our continued leadership within a more effective United Nations at a reduced cost, consistent with our effort to balance the budget.”

Albright pointed out that while it was possible that there were some in Congress who will never support funding for the United Nations, “I am convinced that the majority would like to see us pay what we owe.”