U.S. Funding for the UN: An Overview

The United States needs to foster broad-based international cooperation to address the challenges of an increasingly complex and dangerous world.  Key issues on the international agenda make it clear that the U.S. cannot bear all the costs or risks of international peace and security—from stabilizing the Middle East, to ending the genocide in Darfur, or reaching international consensus on combating global climate change.   

Yet, as of March 1, 2008, the U.S. was $2.4 billion behind in its treaty obligations to the United Nations, due to Administration and Congressional underfunding of our treaty-obligated contributions to the UN, and timing differentials, as the U.S. pays its bills to the United Nations and most other treaty-obligated international organizations a year or more late.

Congress and the Administration have recently acted to address some U.S. debt to the UN through FY 2008 and FY 2009 supplemental funding, as detailed below.  Yet the Administration’s proposed budget for FY 2009 threatens these gains by once again substantially underfunding anticipated UN peacekeeping assessments.

 CONGRESS MUST ADDRESS U.S. DEBT TO THE UNITED NATIONS IN FY 2009

At the beginning of 2008, U.S. permanent debt to UN peacekeeping totaled $1.2 billion.  Congress and the Administration took action to almost halve this debt through the Emergency Supplemental spending bill, which provided $524 million for the Contributions to International Peacekeeping Activities (CIPA) account that funds UN peacekeeping.  $334 million will go to pay an outstanding balance due from the U.S. for the joint UN-AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur, while $190 million will pay off old debt to UN peacekeeping missions. 

Despite this, U.S. funding for UN peacekeeping still faces challenges due to outstanding current arrears, an outdated cap on U.S. contributions to UN peacekeeping, and a shortfall in the Administration’s proposed budget for UN peacekeeping in FY 2009. 

• Peacekeeping Cap:  We would ask that Congress accommodate the Administration’s request to currently and retroactively lift the 25% cap on payments to UN peacekeeping.  This would allow Congress to provide $159 million in the CIPA account—not yet requested by the Administration—to pay off all arrears incurred under the cap.
  
  
• Current Arrears:  While the recent emergency supplemental spending bill allocated $190 million for back dues, there still remains $76 million in current arrears for UN peacekeeping that are attributable to Administration and Congressional underfunding, not peacekeeping cap restrictions or the $451 million in so-called “contested arrears.” 
  
  
• FY 2009 Budget Shortfalls:  We would also ask for an additional $339 million beyond the Administration’s FY 2009 budget request for peacekeeping to allow the U.S. to fully pay its anticipated peacekeeping assessments.  Based on the UN’s actual budget assessments agreed to in June 2008, the Administration’s $1.497 billion request for UN peacekeeping in FY 2009 is at least $339 million short.  The Administration’s request assumes that many peacekeeping missions will downsize in FY 2009, despite the fact that the U.S. has voted on the Security Council for continued increases in UN peacekeeping missions and budgets. 

Click here to view a mission-by-mission chart of FY 2009 UN Peacekeeping needs.

 

Due to inadequate budgets and inattention to U.S. treaty alliances in recent years, the U.S. began this year $167 million short in meeting its commitments to the 44 treaty-based international organizations that it belongs to.  As a result and for the first time in nearly a decade, the U.S. incurred hard arrears in 22 treaty-based organizations—including the IAEA, WHO, UN, NATO, OECD and all other major treaty alliances.   These arrears are above and beyond the U.S.’s (counterproductive) practice of paying dues for these organizations a year or more late.  Thus, the U.S. today has almost a billion dollars in debt in the UN's regular budget and planned permanent arrears in the FAO, ILO, UNESCO, and OECD.

The recently passed Emergency Supplemental funding bill provided $141 million to pay down outstanding U.S. bills in the Contributions to International Organizations (CIO) account, $90 million of which will likely go to the United Nations.   Despite this funding, U.S. funding for international organizations still faces outstanding shortfalls due to past underfunding and the U.S. practice of paying dues for these organizations more than a year late.

• Current Shortfalls:  The recent Emergency Supplemental funding bill included $141 million in funding for the CIO account.  This amount does not address $26 million in old shortfalls and new ones stemming from a continuing weak dollar. 
  
  
• Resynchronization:  In planning for FY 2010, we recommend that Congress and/or the U.S. Administration lay the groundwork to catch up on $1.3 billion in timing differentials in the CIO account, beyond current year dues, to resynchronize U.S. payments with international organizations’ billing cycles.  The U.S. began deferring payments to some international organizations back in the 1980s with the adoption of a budgetary mechanism (the so-called Stockman plan) to garner one-time budgetary savings by deferring dues payments by nine months—into the next fiscal year.  The U.S. has now extended and expanded payment deferrals to 22 treaty-based organizations, including NATO, the IAEA, WHO, OPCW, OECD, UN, and virtually every major treaty organization that the U.S. belongs to.