Poorest Nations First To Pay UN Dues

by Thalif Deen

A UN spokesman told IPS that what was unusual about the early payments was that four of the 10 -- Bangladesh, Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone -- are states designated by the world body as "least developed countries" (LDCs), the poorest of the world's poor.

"They are the weakest segment of the international community. But their support and commitment to the United Nations is the strongest," Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, UN undersecretary general for Least Developed Countries, told IPS.

Chowdhury said it was "wonderful" to hear that four of the 10 member states on the UN 's "honor roll" for 2003 were LDCs. "The international donor community, in turn, owes these countries its support and economic assistance for development cooperation."

"The LDCs are the most economically vulnerable group of countries at the United Nations," he said, "and they do not have a level playing field."

Currently, there are 49 LDCs, of which 33 are from sub-Saharan Africa.

The thresholds for inclusion in the list of LDCs include: population of less than 75 million; per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) of less than $800; and an Augmented Physical Quality of Life Index (combining health, nutrition and education) of less than 59.

Bangladesh paid $135,000 as its total UN dues for 2003 followed by Mali ($11,800), Senegal ($67,500) and Sierra Leone ($13,500).

The other six countries in the "honor roll" are Armenia, whose UN dues for 2003 amounted to $27,000, Belarus with $256,000, Congo with $13,500, Honduras with $67,500, Latvia with $135,000 and Ukraine, $715,500.

The United States, the world's richest nation, is currently the biggest single defaulter owing more than $800 million to the world body.

To date, total outstanding dues from all member states amount to over $2.6 billion, of which $1.7 billion is arrears accrued in 2002. Also in 2002, only 117 out of a total of 191 member states paid their budget contributions in full, compared with 135 the previous year.

The UN 's budget for 2002-2003 amounts to about $2.6 billion. For 2004-2005, Secretary General Kofi Annan has proposed a preliminary budget of about $2.9 billion.

Faced with a growing cash crisis, the United Nations is currently on an austerity drive. It has slashed some $75 million dollars in mostly operational expenses in the UN secretariat in New York.

The crisis has been prompted by two factors: first, non-payment or delayed payment of UN dues by member states, and second, outstanding arrears by some of the key contributors to the UN budget, including the United States, Russia, Brazil and Argentina.

When the General Assembly approved the 2002-2003 budget, it was conditional on overall cuts of 75 million in operational services. The cuts include $19.7 million in general operating expenses, $10 million in information technology, $7.2 million in furniture and equipment, $6.4 million in contractual services, $2.8 million in staff travel, $2 million in the hiring of consultants and experts and $1.4 million in supplies and materials.

Joseph Connor, the outgoing undersecretary general for management, says the austerity measures are necessary to conform to provisions in a zero-growth budget.

Connor said the United Nations does not have sufficient financial resources to maintain services for meetings, facilities management and information technology at existing levels.

"Accordingly, staff, delegates and visitors will inevitably experience reduction or degradation of some services," he said last year. The cuts, which include a ban on all after-hours meetings, have triggered strong protests from the Group of 77 (G-77) coalition of 133 developing nations.

The G-77, the largest single group at the United Nations, is particularly critical of limits placed on meetings of UN committees and regional groups, which no longer extend beyond 6PM.

Since there will no staffers on duty, including interpreters, after 6PM working overtime, no meetings are being held in the evenings or on weekends.

The only exceptions are meetings of the Security Council and plenary meetings of the General Assembly. Even heating in the 39-story building has been kept at a minimum.

Annan has said that the secretariat will also review a number of administrative and management procedures. One of them, he said, is conference services.

One area that is particularly ripe for scrutiny, he pointed out, is that of documents. "It seems to me there is a need to consider not only the quantity of these documents that we currently prepare, but also the way we do it," he added.

The United Nations has long been known as a paper factory because of the millions of documents it cranks out every year. On an average it produces over 700 million printed pages every year. The cost of printing documents both in New York and Geneva is over $250 million annually.

The amount of documents the UN cranks out has not decreased appreciably despite the introduction of electronic mail and video-conferencing.

Currently over 300,000 UN documents are on UN websites.