By Joseph Klein
Monday, March 13, 2006
The United Nations is presently operating under a six month spending cap approved last December, which will be lifted only if and when Kofi annan determines that sufficient managerial reforms have been put into place. These reforms would include new international accounting standards, a review and sun setting of old programs, more streamlined hiring and firing procedures to create a culture of meritocracy rather than political patronage and nepotism, and an effective financial oversight office.
However, bad habits do not die easily. For example, annan suffered a vote of no confidence on March 8, 2006 from the UN Staff Union. The Union feared that its members would suffer a loss of jobs from the management reforms which annan proposed in his recent report to the General assembly. The irony is that annan proposed to outsource some UN work to offshore locations and move staff out of the United States to perform some back office and information technology support. This would mean more jobs potentially for folks in poorer lands, which could in turn help alleviate poverty conditions there. But apparently some UN staffers are willing to check their wealth redistribution principles at the door of their plush New York offices when it comes to protecting the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed.
at the same time, the large bloc of 132 developing countries, which dominates the General assembly, resists any changes to the status quo. Their members fear losing their current power to influence UN programs and to obtain cushy UN jobs for their favored citizens. although these countries contribute an infinitesimal portion of the UN's regular budget or of its peacekeeping budget, they want to maintain control of the UN's agenda. The United States and Japan alone pay more than 40% of both budgets, but their opinions on how such money should be accounted for are deemed no more important than the opinion of a country that pays a tenth of one percent. This is what South african ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, representing this bloc known as the "Group of 77", meant when he sarcastically told the New York Sun that the United Nations "is not a private corporation. They don't own Class-a stocks and the rest of us common stocks. We are all assessed according too our ability to pay."
actually, the UN Charter gives the General assembly the power to decide how member state contributions to the UN budget will be apportioned, but provides no standard. Yet even assuming, for the sake of argument, that the socialist dogma ‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs' should dictate how the burden of supporting UN operations is shared among sovereign member states, it turns out that many countries are getting a free ride. Until they are prepared to contribute more according to their abilities, their voting privileges should be diluted accordingly — certainly when it comes to deciding how the money should be spent and accounted for.
The best way to measure a country's relative ability to pay is its share of the world's total wealth, measured as a percentage of the world's total Gross Domestic Product ("known as "GDP"). The World Bank compiles such data in "international dollars" (a hypothetical unit of currency that is intended to have the same purchasing power that the U.S. dollar has in the United States at a given point in time and that is considered more accurate for comparative purposes than other measures). Based on data compiled by the World Bank for 2004, the United States' share of the world's GDP is approximately 21%. The U.S. pays 22% of the UN's regular budget and 27% of its peacekeeping budget. Japan's share of the world's GDP when measured on a purchasing parity basis was approximately 7% in 2004. Yet it was assessed 19.4% of the UN's regular 2005 budget and 20% of the UN peacekeeping budget.
Meanwhile, China's share of the world's GDP (not even taking Hong Kong into account) is approximately 12.5%. Yet its share of the UN's regular budget is 2.05%. Let us consider how much of a free ride China is getting in absolute monetary terms. The United States' 2005 contribution to the UN's regular budget of $1.9 billion was $439.6 million in U.S. dollars — nearly half a billion dollars coming out of american taxpayers' pockets to fund the UN. China's contribution amounted to a paltry $41 million in U.S. dollars. If China had been assessed according to its ability to pay, as measured by its share of the world's GDP, China should have paid more than five times that amount or a quarter of a billion U.S. dollars! China continues to oppose Japan's bid for a permanent seat on an expanded Security Council where China has a veto power, even though Japan pays nearly ten times what China contributes to the UN's regular budget.
The more we examine the comparative data, the more evident this free riding phenomenon becomes. For example, South africa is not assessed according to its ability to pay, no matter what its ambassador would have us believe. South africa's share of the world's GDP was measured in 2004 as approximately .8%. Yet its share of the UN's 2005 regular budget was just short of .3% - less than half of what it should have paid. as a result, South africa got a windfall of approximately $10 million in U.S. dollars.
Fidel Castro's friend and Iran supporter, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, is pressing for his country to become one of the ten non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. How about we wait until Venezuela pays the $2 million shortfall out of its oil riches, which should have been added to its actual contribution of $3.4 million?
Finally, let us consider the relative contributions of Israel and Iran. Given Iran's repeated threats to annihilate Israel from the face of the earth, it should be expelled from the United Nations altogether. Instead it is rewarded while Israel is penalized. For the privilege of being attacked more often by UN bodies for alleged human rights violations than any other member state, Israel pays three times the amount that Iran pays - even though oil rich Iran has about three times the share of the world's GDP than Israel does.
Real action is required to wipe out the corruption and mismanagement that besets the United Nations today. The countries that actually pay the bills should have the most say
in determining how that objective is to be accomplished. That is why the spending cap on the UN budget should not be lifted this June until we are satisfied that measurable progress is being made to reform the UN. Certainly those countries that are getting a free ride on the backs of U.S. and Japanese taxpayers should not be heard at all in this debate until they begin contributing according to their true ability to pay.
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