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Canada & the UN > Newton Bowles Reports
Money, Management, Services Now we come to the nitty-gritty, money and people. I guess money is the gritty and people the nitty. Old timers bear with me as I go over familiar territory. I begin with money. The UN has three pockets, three "accounts": Regular, Peacekeeping and Tribunals (war crimes). All states in the UN must pay an annual share, an "assessment," of all three "accounts" (budgets), the amount being decided by the General Assembly (the formula basically is population and GNP). If you fall behind two years in paying, you lose your vote in the Assembly (though not in the Security Council!), though you can still talk. Under international law, "assessments" are legal obligations. All of the above applies to the basic UN institution. Special funds and programmes, like UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA and UNEP, are outside this system: they are supported by voluntary contributions. The same goes for UN world-wide humanitarian assistance. (UN Specialized Agencies-- WHO, UNESCO, ILO, FAO and the rest-- have separate budgets and separate governance.) The General Assembly (Fifth Committee) must approve the Regular budget. The Security Council governs Peacekeeping, although the funding is processed through the G.A. The UN for years has been hand-to-mouth, often asked to do things without getting enough money to do them. On its own insistence, the USA has had the highest assessments-- originally 49%, now 25% of Regular and 31% of Peacekeeping-- with the evident intent of dominating the show. But now the U.S. Congress, in political paranoia, has told the UN that its assessment must come down to 22% of Regular and 25% of Peacekeeping. (In 1985, the late Prime Minister Olof Palme of Sweden proposed that no state should carry more than 10% of the budget. Such a dilution of influence won't fly: have cake and eat.) And so the U.S. government, after keeping the UN on the verge for years, in 1999 has come through with a take-it or leave-it, which at least keeps the UN limping alive. (To coin a conundrum: is the U.S. half in or half out?) The U.S. will not lose its vote in the General Assembly; and its 1999 assessments, both for the Regular budget and for Peacekeeping, will be substantially met. As against its arrears of $1.7 billion, the U.S. Congress has authorized only $926 million payable over 3 years; and since the legislation says this is for Specialized Agencies and the UN, what is available to the UN may be much less. And all of this back pay, as well as the future, depends on acceptance of U.S. conditions by the other 187 countries. (I have mentioned only the major U.S. "conditions"; there are many others.) One piece of good news: I don't know how this fits in, but U.S. funds for the UNFPA, excluded last year, have been restored at $25 million. How will this play out at the UN? Formally, it will have to go through the Fifth Committee which will resume in March 2000. For the future, I guess the "scale of assessments" (the share of every country in UN expenses) will be adjusted to accommodate U.S. demands, with "middle powers" like Canada picking up the tab. The U.S. debt will not easily be written off, even if it will not easily be collected. Overall, the UN financial situation is a little better than one year ago, total arrears standing at $1.7 billion as against $2 billion last year. Contributions Paid and Not Paid - 31 December
1999
The U.S. share of arrears was $167.8 million of the Regular budget, $995.1 million of peacekeeping, and $7.2 million of the Tribunals (total $1,170.1, about two-thirds of all unpaid dues). Once again, the UN had to "borrow" peacekeeping funds to pay ordinary (regular) expenses; while at the same time some peacekeeping funds had to be advanced to the Kosovo and East Timor operations. At year's end 1999, troop contributions were owed $774 million (of which around $40 million is for Canada). One of the U.S. conditions is that the UN budget should stand still, no increase at all, not even for inflation. To a degree, other major donors support this, albeit without being quite so rigid. The NAM doesn't like it; and after jousting and jockeying all through the night, the Fifth Committee approved a budget for the biennium 2000-2001 totalling $2,535 million, a symbolic $3 million higher than the preceding biennium. The Secretary-General (through his stalwart manager Joe Connor) has yet to get hold of this process, as Fifth Committee nibblers feed on details, still getting a few special deals, enough to validate staff cynicism though not anything like institutional corruption. "Results based budgeting" (linking money, the structure of the budget, to getting specific things done) is still in advocacy, with pro forma demonstrations. Its acceptance would loosen the hold of the micro-managers. This is not to say that all is well in-house. While Kofi Annan's open cabinet style-- his weekly meetings of top administrators-- breathes life down the corridors, the life-style of this hybrid creature is slow to find its way. Staff management remains slow and cumbersome, although streamlining and transfusion are in vogue, e.g. involving staff through a "Change Management Forum" and an "Ideas Data Bank." (People are bribed to think!) For general assessment, I turn to the wise and discrete judgment of Karl Paschke, who has just completed his 5-year launching of UN's "Internal Oversight." (His independence was strengthened by his non-renewable contract. He will be missed.) The introduction to his final report is worth reading. Here is some of it: The United Nations of today, moving towards the new millennium and its global challenges, is a better Organization in many respects than, say, five years ago, and enhanced oversight has played its part in that change. However, further improvement within the United Nations is still necessary in many ways. Internal controls are not strong enough yet; accountability continues to be blurred and misunderstood; delegation of authority must be effectively executed; and human resources management is in need of further reform, particularly in the areas of career development, intensified staff rotation, enhanced substantive support in respect of staff-management relations and the system of personnel assessment. Documents management has to be systematized throughout the United Nations in order to strengthen institutional memory and document security. State-of-the-art information technology remains a goal, but has yet to be achieved. The operational and psychological distance between Headquarters and the field, that is, the other duty stations, although somewhat "shortened" by the use of e-mail and by the executive committees created in the reform process, remains a problem. Beyond these managerial challenges, some more general phenomena have been of concern to me throughout my tenure here, and remain complicating factors in the daily struggle of the Organization: A staff-management relationship that is characterized by antagonism rather than the spirit of cooperation; An overly critical attitude of many Member States towards the United Nations bureaucracy, resulting in numerous examples of micromanagement by the legislative organs; The constantly growing number of mandates where their reduction and a new definition of United Nations priorities would be desirable; The discrepancy between the expectations the world community has of the United Nations and the meagre resources it makes available to the Organization.Having said this, I wish to express my pride and satisfaction at having been chosen to serve the world Organization whose importance is bound to grow further in this global environment of ours. What about these maligned workers of the world, many hard-pressed and harassed, others at ease in nooks and crannies of this glass monument by the river? Those whom I know (no, not statistically anything) are serious and committed, engagé, despite endemic frustration. Let us be mindful of our UN sisters and brothers in jeopardy in war-torn societies. The Convention for the Protection of UN Humanitarian Personnel (adopted in 1994 but ratified by only 29 States as of February 2000) can have done little to make their lives safer. Addressing the Security Council in 9 February 2000, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette made a plea for the universal ratification and vigorous enforcement of this Convention. Noting that the Convention now refers only to operations initiated by the Security Council, she also advocated its extension to all humanitarian personnel. International humanitarians are often the targets of contesting warriors: "Since January 1992," she said, "184 staff members have lost their lives in the service of the United Nations. Of these, 98 were murdered. And yet, to date, only two perpetrators have been brought to justice and convicted." More civilians than Blue Helmets have died. No cellphones, no TV: can we remember? |
