Funding for the United Nations and its agencies comes from two sources: assessed contributions to finance the UN’s regular budget, peacekeeping operations, and specialized agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency and voluntary contributions to specialized agencies and subsidiary organizations of the UN, through which more than half of the UN’s funding is provided.
Assessed Contributions
Assessed contributions are payments made as part of the obligations that nations undertake when signing treaties – like the one establishing the United Nations. For example, the U.S. is assessed to pay 22% of the UN’s regular budget and about 27 percent of the UN’s peacekeeping operations budget, although an outdated Congressional mandate caps U.S. expenditures at 25 percent of the UN’s peacekeeping budget. U.S. assessed contributions support a variety of critical UN initiatives, notably peacekeeping operations that promote global security without requiring the U.S. having to bear all the costs or deploy all the forces. Other recent efforts funded by UN assessed contributions have included:
- Facilitating and holding elections in Afghanistan and Iraq;
- Investigating the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri;
- Monitoring nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran;
- Coordinating tsunami and earthquake relief projects in Indonesia and Pakistan;
- Detecting outbreaks of avian flu and defending against a world pandemic;
- Creating systems to protect the intellectual property rights of American entrepreneurs; and
- Enabling the delivery of mail around the world.
Voluntary Contributions
Voluntary contributions are, as the name implies, voluntary rather than assessed payments and are entirely up to the individual country to decide whether or not, and how much, to contribute. These contributions finance most of the United Nations’ humanitarian relief and development agencies, including the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Program (WFP), and the UN Development Program (UNDP).
Most U.S. funding of the UN system goes to these programs that the U.S. government independently chooses to fund. These include:
- Purchases of U.S. agricultural products for humanitarian relief and school feeding projects through the World Food Program;
- Department of Labor help for International Labor Organization programs to eliminate and prevent the use of child labor overseas;
- Funding for nuclear energy safety and security overseas; and
- Funding to protect and resolve refugee problems worldwide, tackle the AIDS pandemic, improve education in Pakistan, and increase drug control and crime prevention in Colombia.
Such activities are U.S. national security investments that would be difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. to undertake alone. U.S. voluntary contributions are financed through the foreign assistance authorization and appropriation legislation.
Paying our Dues: The UN Regular Budget
The UN’s regular budget finances the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat.
The current structure sets maximum and minimum dues rates for all nations. The maximum “ceiling” rate is 22 percent. The minimum “floor” rate for poorer countries is 0.001 percent. The United States pays the maximum rate and has negotiated several reductions in this rate over time. In 1974, the UN placed a cap of 25 percent on the ceiling for member states’ assessments; in 2000 the General Assembly reduced this cap (applicable only to the U.S.) to 22 percent. Nonetheless, the top 15 contributing nations remain the major funding source for the UN, contributing about 84 percent of the regular budget.
The U.S. assessed contribution to the UN’s regular budget is included, along with 43 other UN-system, regional, and non-UN organizations, in the State Department’s Contributions to International Organizations (CIO) account.
Paying Our Dues: UN Peacekeeping Budget
The UN’s peacekeeping budget is separate from the regular budget but is also financed by assessments to member states. The UN’s peacekeeping assessment formula mirrors the regular budget rate structure but gives greater discounts to poorer nations. This discount is made up by the permanent five members of the Security Council (the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China), each of which has unique voting and veto rights at the Security Council to authorize or suspend any peacekeeping operation.
The U.S. assessed contributions to the UN’s peacekeeping operations are funded through the State Department’s Contributions to International Peacekeeping Activities (CIPA) account.
Arrears
Arrears are a chronic problem at the United Nations. Many poorer nations cannot afford to pay their full assessment and are in arrears. Other countries, notably the United States, have delayed or withheld payments for reasons unrelated to their ability to pay. Under the UN Charter, member states that are two years in arrears at the UN can lose their vote in the General Assembly.
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