U.S.-U.N.: Congress clears more money for U.N., cuts for population/CORRECTED REPEAT

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 27 1996 (IPS) - U.S. lawmakers have agreed to provide almost 200 million dollars more to the United Nations this year than they had planned just a few months ago.

As a result, Washington will not add as much to its 1.6-billion- dollar accumulated debt to the world body as had been feared. The lawmakers have also agreed to increase spending on U.N. peacekeeping operations this year.

At the same time, however, they are deadlocked over an effort by a coalition of Democrat and moderate Republican senators to restore curbs on funding for international population programmes that have sharply curtailed the availability of contraceptive supplies to many developing nations.

As a result, Washington will be able to provide only 356 million dollars for population activities over the 15 months after July 1, and a seven-month freeze on disbursing money for population activities will remain in effect until then.

The United States has traditionally been the world’s largest funder of international population programmes and supplier of contraceptive devices to poor countries. President Bill Clinton had originally asked Congress to approve well over 500 million dollars for fiscal year 1996, which began last Oct. 1.

“This is an attempt to strangle family-planning programmes,” said Sally Ethelston of Population Action International (PAI), a Washington research group which supports population programmes.

The decisions, taken Thursday, were taken as part of a 150- billion-dollar omnibus appropriations bill approved by a House of Representatives-Senate conference committee. It will fund the government through the end of fiscal 1996 on Sep. 30. Clinton is expected to sign the bill when it reaches his desk.

While administration and U.N. officials are still poring over the more than 300 pages of the bill for details, it appeared that the United Nations emerged as a big winner in the last-minute give- and-take between lawmakers and the White House.

“We came out a lot better than what we thought,” said one senior U.N. official here. “If anyone had said three months ago that we’d come out so well, I would’ve said it was impossible,” he added.

Clinton originally asked Congress for 924 million dollars to satisfy all assessed dues for the U.N. and several dozen other international and regional agencies in 1996. Earlier this year, Congress approved only 700 million dollars of that total.

“That would have been a disaster for our obligations,” a senior State Department official told IPS Thursday. He noted that the request was based on treaty commitments which Washington was unilaterally breaking.

The House-Senate conference committee, however, agreed to approve 892 million dollars for 1996, just 31 million dollars short of the target.

Lawmakers also included instructions to the administration to fully fund the United Nations, meaning that Washington should provide its full assessment of about 321 million dollars, provided that the world body does not increase its budget above current levels. If that condition is met, the United States should not accumulate any additional arrears in 1996.

U.S. arrears — approximately 1.6 billion dollars of the 2.8 billion dollars currently owed to the U.N. by its members states — have been the primary reason for the world body’s unprecedented financial crisis.

The Clinton administration has asked Congress to approve a “grand bargain” this year. Provided that the United Nations carries out certain unspecified reforms, the plan envisages Washington’s paying back all its arrears to international organisations in equal installments over five years, beginning in fiscal 1997.

The conferees also approved an increase in the amount of money it will pay U.N. peacekeeping operations this year. Clinton had originally asked for 440 million dollars to cover the U.S. commitment for 1996. Congress initially approved only 225 million dollars, but decided Thursday to increase that amount to 363 million dollars.

One U.S. official suggested that might come close covering Washington’s obligations for this year, because of U.S. opposition to extending one mission in the Western Sahara and the replacement of U.N. troops by NATO in Bosnia. Both operations were considered likely to continue through 1996 at the time the original request was submitted.

Either way, however, the peacekeeping funds are certain to fall short of U.N. expectations. That is because Congress and the administration decided unilaterally last year that Washington should contribute only 25 percent of all U.N. peacekeeping costs, whereas the U.N. is charging the United States for more than 31 percent.

Washington owes the U.N. peacekeeping account about 800 million dollars. If Congress goes along with Clinton’s grand bargain, the arrears would be paid back at the rate of about 150 million dollars a year beginning in 1997.

Population groups, however, were bitterly disappointed with lawmakers’ failure to undo drastic curbs on population funding imposed by right-wing Republicans earlier this year.

Clinton had originally asked for 549 million dollars in population funding in 1996, as well as 35 million dollars more for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). But after a protracted wrangle which held up Washington’s entire 1997 foreign aid bill for four months, the administration went along with an across-the-board 35- percent cut in population funding.

As approved, the bill further required that the remaining 356 million dollars in bilateral aid and 23 million dollars for UNFPA could not be spent until July 1, 1996, and then only in equal monthly installments through Sep. 30, 1997.

As a result, less than 75 million dollars in bilateral population assistance will be spent in fiscal 1996 — only about one-sixth the level of what Washington has traditionally provided.

“This is a devastating blow to women who’ve learned about family planning through U.S.-based and worldwide family planning programmes, but who will now have their supplies cut short by Congress as a result of election-year politics,” said a press spokesman at the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in New York. IPPF is a major recipient of U.S. aid.

Foes of the cutbacks, led by Oregon Republican Senator Mark Hatfield, argued that the curbs imposed by the bill would actually increase the number of abortions worldwide because many couples would lose access to family planning services and supplies.

In Peru, for example, the IPPF estimated that more than 200,000 couples relying on just one programme there would lose services as a result of the nine-month freeze on disbursements and the limited supplies the money would make available after July 1. Some experts predicted that the cuts could result in 1.6 million additional abortions during 1996.

But right-wing lawmakers refused to even consider a compromise, and thus no new agreement could be reached.

“We deplore this short-sighted and callous decision,” said Victoria Markell, PAI’s vice-president. “The American public should know who to blame for this action, one that has serious consequences for the health of women and children overseas, as well as for the development prospects of the world’s poorest nations.”