July 14, 2000: The European Union calls on 20 newly rich countries to increase contributions to the UN. French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, representing the EU, says "the essential criteria is what you are able to pay." The EU has identified Singapore, Israel, Argentina, Slovenia, and other countries as able to pay more since their economies are now affluent.
July 13, 2000: The US makes a minimal contribution of $135 million to the regular budget, but it remains the UN's largest debtor, owing more than $1.5 billion dollars overall.
July 3, 2000: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder indirectly criticizes U.S. proposals to reduce its contributions to the United Nations. Following talks in Berlin with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, Schroeder tells reporters no state had the right to unilaterally reduce its material support for the UN.
June 15, 2000: On the recommendation of the Fifth Committee, $1.67 billion in resources is approved in the General Assembly for peacekeeping projects. The Assembly also adopts recommendations on the finance of support activities at United Nations Headquarters, on audits of peacekeeping operations and other aspects of the UN's administration.
May 17, 2000: Cyprus, Estonia, Israel, Hungary and the Philippines agree to increase their share of the peacekeeping budget. Israel and Hungary state they are willing to give up 80% discounts on their peacekeeping assessments, figures based on their countries economic status in 1973. Secretary of State Madeline Albright commends these member states on their "commitment to UN peacekeeping."
May 16, 2000: The Washington Times reports that discussions begin to reconsider the allocation of peacekeeping costs with an eye to reducing the American contribution. The discussion - which will likely last until the General Assembly adjourns in December - was called by the United States in an effort to reduce its current level of assessment. U.S. ambassadors have tried to sell such a plan to the United Nations for the last decade. But this year, for the first time, more than 30 nations have agreed at least to open discussions.
May 8, 2000: UNHCR faces serious cutbacks in its programs due to US$150 million in delays in receiving pledges from donor countries. UNHCR is at its lowest funding level in a decade. South Eastern Europe will be hardest hit by the cuts, especially UN sponsored transport and business links between Serb, Muslims, and Croatian towns in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Operations in Africa however, traditionally under funded, will escape the axe this time.
March 30, 2000: Fifteen Ambassadors of the UN Security Council receive a US civics lesson from Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Helms stressed the US Senate's "unique" role in American Foreign policy. The Ambassadors, mostly allies of the US, listen politely but said that there was no excuse for the high debt of the US to the UN, now at $1.7 billion. Senator Helms had addressed the Security Council in January, threatening the withdrawal of the US unless the UN "respects the sovereign rights of the American people and serves them as an effective instrument."
March 23, 2000: US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, in his statement to the Fifth Committee on reassessment of peacekeeping arrears for the US, terms the UN "indispensable but flawed." He says that the US government wants to "fix it to save it." Holbrooke emphasizes that immediate financial reform, i.e., a reevaluation of the peacekeeping assessment, is necessary if the UN is to keep pace with the growing peacekeeping demands, especially in Africa. Other members of the US delegation to the UN have warned that failure to revise the peacekeeping assessments would seriously jeopardize the UN's peacekeeping efforts.
The same day, Under-Secretary General for Management Joseph Connor delivers an assessment of the UN's financial situation at the end of 1999. Cash balances were up at the end of last year, unpaid assessments down and debts to Member States also down he reported. At the end of the year the UN had nearly $1.1 billion in cash balances. This figure is up from a total of $736 million at the end of 1998. Unpaid assessments by year's end stood around $1.7 billion, which is less than the more than $2 billion owed at the end of 1998.
March 13, 2000: The Assembly's Fifth Committee begins a three-week session today. Before the Committee is the issue of the scale of assessments for apportioning the expenses of the UN. The Committee must agree on the elements of the methodology which will be used in preparing future scales reassessments for the regular budget.
March 12, 2000: According to the New York Times, the US wants its assessment lowered from 25% to 22% of the regular budget. Congress has already passed a bill reducing the US percentage of the peacekeeping budget from 30.4% to 25%. Sources say that US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke's task of convincing other member states to pay more so that the US can pay less will be difficult. Resentment is mounting among many of the US's closest European allies as well as Canada. They contend that no nation can make demands on the organization that violate treaty obligations to pay dues on time, in full and without conditions.
March 9, 2000:After a daylong debate, the Security Council stressed the importance of financial support for the success of the UN's humanitarian assistance efforts. The early dispersal of funds, members say, is critical for providing effective humanitarian assistance. But cutbacks in funding for emergencies have been the pattern among most large donors.
March 2, 2000:Representative Harold Rogers, chair of the House Subcommittee, which oversees the US State Department budget, told a key Washington lawmaker that the $739 million for peacekeeping that the Clinton administration requested would be used in supporting missions which "offer little hope for success." Rogers told US Secretary of State Madeline Albright that the funding proposal for UN missions in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, and East Timor "has the potential to derail what progress we've been able to achieve in settling accounts with the UN and advancing UN reform."
February 16, 2000: Those member states, numbering forty plus, which paid their full dues by Jan 31st are awarded "honor roll" status.
February 7, 2000: UN faces a funding crisis in Kosovo. The UN urgently needs US$102 million, a sum equal to the amount Sweden spent on sending 860 of its soldiers to Kosovo. UN administrator Bernard Kouchner, speaking at the Tokyo Press Club, regretfully admits that the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is "facing an emergency period. We have to pay the civil servants." Kouchner explains that the most urgent need is payment for public servants. However, donors, such as the EU, have preferred to fund capital projects instead of current needs.
Several US senators have criticized the lack of European support for the UN operations in the Balkans. Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat explains "I am mystified why our own NATO allies have not provided more police for service in their own backyard." Levin adds that the EU has not provided any of the $35 million promised for reconstruction efforts. "On my scorecard, the European nations and the European Union are flunking the test."
February 1, 2000: 52 countries are in danger of losing their vote in the General Assembly after failing to pay their dues on time. 7 are allowed to retain their vote because of extenuating financial circumstances, while 45 lose their voting rights. The UN is owed $3.47 billion, two-thirds of which is for peacekeeping. The US remains by far the largest debtor, owing more than 50% of the UN Core Budget.
January 28, 2000: Canada, Iceland and South Africa pay their dues. Only 36 of the 188 members have paid their dues in full. The others have until midnight 31 January to pay their dues before falling into arrears.
January 25, 2000: In the wake of the meeting of Senator Jesse Helms and the Security Council, US Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright states that "only the President of the United States can speak for the American people." Insisting that the Clinton administration and most American people view the UN quite differently from Senator Helms, she says "we strongly support the United Nations Charter and the organization's purpose."
January 22, 2000: A Boston Globe editorial disputes Helms' claim to speak for "the American people" and reiterates that the overwhelming majority of Americans support the UN. It also cautions against permitting a plurality of voices to speak for a member state, explaining that the UN would not be able to function if "voices from the legislatures or the political oppositions in various nations proposed to speak for their countries."
January 21, 2000: Addressing a field hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Manhattan, US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke concedes that it will be difficult to convince the rest of the UN membership to permit a reduction of the US share of the UN budget. He informs the Committee that the legislature in Japan, which pays 19 percent of the UN regular budget, has taken up a bill similar to the Helms - Biden legislation. Unilateral reassessments of member states' contributions to the UN budget promise to plunge the UN into even greater financial uncertainty.
January 20, 2000: Senator Helms addresses the Security Council, becoming the first legislator from any country to do so. He claims that figures from the US General Accounting Office reveal that in 1999, "the American people" contributed a total of more than $1.4 billion to the UN system in assessments and voluntary contributions. "American taxpayers" also spent an additional $8.8 billion from the US military budget to support UN resolutions and peacekeeping operations around the world. This meant in 1999 a total of $10.2 billion to support the work of the UN. These figures are disputed the next day by Steven Dimoff, Vice President of the United Nations Association of the United States, who says in an interview with the New York Times, that the sum "really does stretch reality," because it includes military activities planned and executed by the United States without any input from the United Nations. Helms concludes his blunt address by threatening that the consequence of "a United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people, without their consent" would be "confrontation and eventual U.S. withdrawal."
Responding to Senator Helms' speech to the Security Council, Dutch Ambassador van Walsum asserts that a member state cannot attach conditions to its willingness to pay its assessed contributions to the UN.
French Ambassador Dejammet reminds Senator Helms that the 15 members of the EU pay 36% of the UN budget, although they account for only 31% of the world economy.
Malaysian Ambassador Hasmy says "the U.S. enjoys currently unprecedented wealth and economic growth, and we fail to see why, from the perspective of the developing world, the United States will not be able to do what we all do - or most of us do - to pay our dues in full, on time, and without conditions."
January 5, 2000: Belarus, Finland, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Lesotho, Marshall Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines begin the new year by paying their annual dues to the UN in full on the first working day, with Finland making the first and largest full payment of $5.7 million.
