24 March 2000
U.S. Presses for Change in U.N. Peacekeeping Assessments
(Holbrooke: UN is facing "a coming train wreck") (1750) By Judy Aita Washington File United Nations Correspondent United Nations -- Warning that the United Nations faces "a coming train wreck over the peacekeeping budget," U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said March 23 that the UN member states must restructure the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the system of financing peacekeeping operations. "Most urgently, we face a potential train wreck between our aspirations for successful peacekeeping, especially in Africa, and our current system for funding those same peacekeeping efforts -- an antiquated and inequitable system that will not longer bear the burdens and obligations placed upon it," Holbrooke said. "It isn't a question of meeting some American demand, it's a question of the fact that right now, the way the UN is structured, we can't keep voting for peacekeeping and then never figure out how it's going to be financed using a financing system that is 26 years old and hasn't been significantly revised in over a quarter of a century," the American Ambassador told UN diplomats. "The political and financial stability of this organization depend on broadening the U.N. tax base but in an equitable and fair manner," he said. "The status quo as an option will only lead to a crisis in which the Security Council may vote peacekeeping but we will be unable to fund it," Holbrooke said. He said that "one way or another we will see change in the next year. We will either pull together or watch this organization get mired down in differences which damage our most important responsibility to deal with peacekeeping challenges." Holbrooke, the chief U.S. envoy to the United Nations, told the General Assembly's Budget Committee (Fifth Committee) that "peacekeeping is the core function of this institution. Yet as a result of the legacy of the Cold War and outdated ideological attitudes, we have failed to adequately institutionalize the management and funding of this critical activity." The U.S. Ambassador said that he approached the committee not with "fully formed American proposals made in the USA" but with a desire "to stimulate a new effort to work together for significant reform." He spoke to the committee at its first session of the year to renew U.S. effort to get the scale of assessments -- under which UN members pay annual dues for the regular budget and peacekeeping assessments -- restructured. The process is expected to end in December when the General Assembly votes on the committee's recommendations. Holbrooke said that the "the stakes are high and the time is short." Both the U.S. Congress and the Clinton Administration have maintained that the current scales of assessment do not adequately reflect the current international economic situation or take into account the improved or worsened economic conditions of many states. Before the committee meeting, Holbrooke and Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov issued a joint press statement on US-Russian cooperation on UN reform. "The Russian Federation and the United States of America agree to intensify Russian-American cooperation in the United Nations in order to promote broad agreement on practical ways and means to support the reform process with the aim of making the United Nations more efficient and more responsive to the challenges of the new millennium," the joint U.S.-Russian statement said. "The Russian Federation and the United States share an obligation to encourage the United Nations to the greatest possible effectiveness and efficiency, especially in maintaining and enhancing international peace and security in accordance with the U.N. Charter. Our ministers asked their ambassadors in New York and their respective ministries to work together and with others toward this end," the statement said. Holbrooke said that he and Lavrov will be working with the other permanent members of the Security Council -- China, France, and Great Britain -- and other countries to stimulate a much more intensive effort toward reform "in which the original founding member states take a leading role." UN Undersecretary General for Management Joseph Connor told the Fifth Committee that "in 1999 the UN took a step back from the financial brink," ending the year with more cash on hand, unpaid assessments down, and the debt to peacekeeping troop contributing countries down. At the end of 1999, unpaid assessments for both the regular budget, peacekeeping and the tribunal, stood at $1,758 million, down from $2,031 million a year earlier, he said. Nevertheless, Connor said that the year 2000 could overturn that progress especially with increased peacekeeping responsibilities. The UN budget crisis "began in earnest in 1995 when the United States paid only 48 percent of its regular budget assessment," Connor noted. "The immediate crisis subsided in 1999 when the United States paid 149 percent of its regular budget assessment" largely making up for the 1995 shortfall. In addition, the improved peacekeeping cash position was due in part to the fact that the United States paid at a rate of 92 percent of 1999, 1998, and 1997 assessment and far in excess of the 40 and 70 percent levels paid in 1995 and 1996, he said. The new special missions in Kosovo and East Timor, and upcoming peacekeeping missions in Africa, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) "can undo the overall better (financial) situation that currently prevails," Connor said. "These operations are daunting...and so too their financial underpinning." Holbrooke said that "neither the management structure nor the financial system currently in place will support such an expansion of the peacekeeping effort." "With demand far outpacing this institution's capacity, we're headed for another decisive moment that will pose for all of us the most fundamental choices about whether or not the UN will stay in the peacekeeping business and do it effectively," the U.S. Ambassador said. Peacekeeping, he said, is "the core task for which the United Nations was formed and the one upon which it will ultimately be judged." "The current system for financing and conducting peacekeeping will not support the goals and ideals of this institution. We need to restructure DPKO and the system of financing. We need to be strong and honest in this endeavor," he said. "The African states themselves have the most to gain by this reform because most of the challenges we face in peacekeeping will be in Africa as well as East Timor and Kosovo." DPKO needs more staff, strengthened planning capacity, streamlined logistical structure and the ability to move resources into the field in real time, the U.S. Ambassador said. In the area of financing, the greatest challenge is not U.S. domestic legislation or arrears, Holbrooke said, but "an outdated system that is not equitable." "The current peacekeeping scale of assessment was negotiated in 8 days in 1973 to fund a single mission in the Sinai....It is not a system that should be locked in concrete," he said. The U.S. Ambassador to the UN pointed out that the current assessment system "concentrates 98 percent of the financial responsibility with 30 member states-- about 90 percent of it with less than 10 states." "The other 158 members, big and small, rich and poor, richer or poorer than they were in 1973, pay only token amounts regardless of how much their economies have changed," he said. "Some countries should be allowed to pay less, some should be willing to pay more." Holbrooke stressed that the push for assessment reform "is not an effort to foist burdens on those who cannot afford them. The bulk of the countries will not change what they are contributing under any revision. But there are countries that are not contributing despite their undeniable capacity to pay." "We want to establish a system that recognizes each nation's capacity to pay and spreads the financial burden equitably among the entire membership," he said. Holbrooke said that the United States will not present a specific plan or set up another task force, "rather we want to work especially closely together to bring reform to the UN and help create a more stable financial structure and invite other countries to join us." The United States, he said, is not trying to dictate, "but suggest." The U.S. Ambassador summed up the U.S. view of the United Nations in "three words "indispensable but flawed." And added that U.S. "goals can be summed up in five words: fix it to save it." "By flaws I do not mean those minor blemishes which can be fixed by a little polishing," he said. "Unfortunately some of the defects of the UN system are of such a scale that they seriously threaten our goals especially peacekeeping....if not corrected they could threaten the UN itself." Holbrooke said that U.S. officials "are aware of the strong feelings toward the U.S......We have been criticized for having a double standard, for acting outside the Security Council, for not paying our assessed share of peacekeeping costs and for falling behind in some of our financial obligations to the UN." A series of funding bills will allow the U.S. to contribute close to $3,000 million dollars to the UN system this year and set aside $926 million for arrears -- by far the largest single nation contribution to the United Nations, he said. Over $100 million of the U.S. arrears have been paid, and "the rest sits available as we work toward additional reforms." Discussing overall UN reform, Holbrooke said that much of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's highly praised 1997 report was ignored. "For example, his farsighted call for sunset provisions when new programs are launched have been shelved or rejected by the member states," he said. The U.S. Ambassador to the UN said that the changes do not necessarily have to be broad sweeping actions but "an accumulation of seemingly small changes which, if taken, would amount over time to significant strengthening of the United Nations." On overall management, Holbrooke suggested that the UN Secretary General be given additional managerial powers to coordinate all jobs of the UN and specialized agencies, to make resource management decisions to reallocate personnel funds to deal with specific emergencies, to take programmatic decisions based on sound management principles, and to hold managers accountable for programs they are responsible for. Steps should be taken to create "a more modern international civil service, one with more mobility , more management flexibility and with a greater sense of today's mission," Holbrooke said. (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)
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