Global Policy Forum

By Thalif Deen

A cash-strapped United Nations got off to a flying start on its first working day for the new year with 10 countries paying their dues in full for 2003. A U.N. spokesman told IPS Thursday that what was unusual about the early payments was that four of the 10 - Bangladesh, Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone - are member states designated by the United Nations 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, U.N. undersecretary-general for Least Developed Countries, told IPS.

Chowdhury said it was ''wonderful'' to hear that four of the 10 member states on the U.N.'s ''honour 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 dollars; and an Augmented Physical Quality of Life Index (combining health, nutrition and education) of less than 59.

Bangladesh paid 135,000 dollars as its total U.N. dues for 2003 followed by Mali (11,800 dollars), Senegal (67,500 dollars) and Sierra Leone (13,500 dollars). The other six countries in the ''honour roll'' are Armenia, whose U.N. dues for 2003 amounted to 27,000 dollars, Belarus with 256,000 dollars, Congo with 13,500 dollars, Honduras with 67,500 dollars, Latvia with 135,000 dollars and Ukraine, 715,500 dollars. The United States, the world's richest nation, is currently the biggest single defaulter owing more than 800 million dollars to the world body.

To date, total outstanding dues from all member states amount to over 2.6 billion dollars, of which 1.7 billion dollars are 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 U.N.'s budget for 2002-2003 amounts to about 2.6 billion dollars. For 2004-2005, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed a preliminary budget of about 2.9 billion dollars.

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 U.N. secretariat in New York. The crisis has been prompted by two factors: first, non-payment or delayed payment of U.N. dues by member states, and second, outstanding arrears by some of the key contributors to the U.N. 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 dollars in operational services. The cuts include 19.7 million dollars in general operating expenses, 10 million dollars in information technology, 7.2 million dollars in furniture and equipment, 6.4 million dollars in contractual services, 2.8 million dollars in staff travel, 2 million dollars in the hiring of consultants and experts and 1.4 million dollars 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 U.N. committees and regional groups, which no longer extend beyond 6 p.m. Since there will no staffers on duty - including interpreters - after 6 p.m. 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 39th storeyed 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 dollars annually. The amount of documents the U.N. cranks out has not decreased appreciably despite the introduction of electronic mail and video-conferencing.

Currently, over 300,000 U.N. documents are on U.N. websites.

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