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Holbrooke’s Address to UN Budgetary Committee on Peacekeeping - UN Finance - Global Policy Forum US Ambassador Holbrooke’s Address to
UN Budgetary Committee on PeacekeepingUS Mission to the UN Press Release #133(00)
October 3, 2000Statement by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Peacekeeping Scale of Assessments, Fifth Committee, October 3, 2000.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting these important discussions.
My fellow ambassadors and delegates to the Fifth Committee,
After yesterday's opening session, I have high hopes for the tough work that we have ahead. Obviously, what happens here in the Fifth Committee will have the most profound effect on the future of the United Nations as an institution and, in particular, on peacekeeping. If today's debate means the beginning of a major revision of peacekeeping, to put it on a more equitable and sound financial basis, then we'll be able to look back on today's session and say that it had a historic quality. If, however, this does not turn out to be the case, it will just be another futile gesture towards an inadequate reform. So we have a high responsibility to take this job seriously and to come up with something by the end of the year.
Our goal is nothing less than to fundamentally revamp and institutionalize the way the United Nations finances peacekeeping. The UN has been concerned over this issue for over forty years, since the era of Dag Hammarskjold old and before. At that time, when the only UN operations were in Congo and the Middle East, the Kennedy Administration, working with other delegations, sought to make the system more fair and equitable by pushing for the creation of a special peacekeeping scale tied to the regular budget. The United States sought at that time a system based on capacity to pay. As a result of deep political divisions, including a lack of consensus on whether the UN should have a commitment to peacekeeping at all, that effort failed.
At the start of this new century, with the UN's responsibilities having increased exponentially since that time, we have an historic opportunity to get peacekeeping right. There is no dispute in this chamber that the 1973 peacekeeping financial system is outdated and lacks the political support of the membership. There's no question that it must be made fair and equitable and there is no disagreement that UN peacekeeping must be fixed to be saved. The Brahimi Report is a major step in that direction.
The crisis in peacekeeping was most apparent last May when Sierra Leone served as an exclamation point for the overall crisis in peacekeeping. Since then, over seventy-five Member States from every region and political allegiance joined together to call for revisions of the UN's ad hoc peacekeeping scale of assessment. Last month during the Millennium Summit, the leaders of the P5 - Britain, France, China, the United States and Russia - issued an historic joint statement that stressed the importance of revising the peacekeeping scale and emphasized their particular responsibility. The United States and Russia separately issued a joint statement reaffirming our concern about peacekeeping and our mutual commitment to work together closely on the issue.
Now this discussion begins in earnest at the working level. It is time to get into the details and move from words to deeds. With 15 peacekeeping operations currently underway around the globe, including five-and-a-half major operations that did not exist fourteen months ago - East Timor, Sierra Leone, Congo, Kosovo, Ethiopia-Eritrea, and the doubling of the size of the force in South Lebanon - the clock is now ticking. We all know that the UN's most challenging and important operations face desperate shortfalls in terms of troops, equipment, and training. For many in this room - including India, Pakistan, Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Poland, Jordan, Bangladesh, and Australia, to name just a few - this means that as we deliberate, your personnel face risks in the field. For others, shortfalls in peacekeeping capacity mean that their regions remain vulnerable to conflicts that could and should be contained by more effective peacekeeping efforts. The United States, for its part, has a very large number of people serving under DPKO, primarily in the civilian police areas. By far the largest contributor to police effort and DPKO is my country, and I stress that point.
Last spring, I referred to this situation as a train wreck waiting to happen. In the intervening months, there have been some important steps forward, as well as some difficult developments in Sierra Leone, and more recently with the deaths of some UN workers in West Timor. And I deeply regret the tragic loss of the lives of two Portuguese soldiers in Attia this morning in a helicopter crash and I extend my deep condolences to the Portuguese government and to its people. I believe that the trains remain on a dangerous course of collision in our peacekeeping effort though I think the speed was slowed down somewhat with the attention to this effort by this committee.
There are two strands to the peacekeeping reform effort that must be addressed simultaneously: the way DPKO works and the way we finance its operations. On the first issue, we have seen progress. With creativity and foresight, Ambassador Brahimi and his Expert Panel have put forward a report that charts a course for strengthening the UN's peacekeeping capabilities. Their work has elicited the overwhelming endorsement of the membership, and will be taken up by the General Assembly this fall. To an extent rarely witnessed before, the UN membership and the Secretariat are joined in a partnership working towards a shared goal.
We must focus that same degree of creativity and partnership on the second speeding train - the crisis in peacekeeping financing. Without the resources to back it, the best reform plan is just a set of empty aspirations. Absent a concrete strategy to address key operational weaknesses, money invested in peacekeeping will not yield results. If combined, however, swift steps toward both operational and financial reform can bring peacekeeping back from the brink, helping to restore the UN's reputation.
The opportunity is clear - the choice is ours. While Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette and her team will guide us on implementing the Brahimi Report, reform of peacekeeping financing is the task of those of us here in this room today. While some of the details are technical, whether or not to save UN peacekeeping is a political choice. These are, after all, questions of leadership. Over the past year, we have developed a clearer sense of what needs to be done.
Virtually all of us recognize that to enter 2001 with the existing ad hoc system in place would be untenable. The record makes clear that even Brazil - which proposed the ad hoc scheme - acknowledged in 1973 that it should not set a precedent. This system devised to fund a single, six month, $30 million operation in the Sinai was never intended to be a precedent. It concentrates 98 percent of the financial responsibility for peacekeeping with just 30 Members, leaving 159 others paying only token amounts regardless of their economic circumstances. Recognizing that delay would put our personnel, our global interests, and the UN's standing at risk, the Members of the Security Council, the P5, the General Assembly, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and many other individual member states have endorsed the urgent need to adopt a revised peacekeeping scale immediately.
We agree on the fundamental principles that must underpin any revision of the scale, all of which have been enshrined for nearly four decades in the June 27, 1963 consensus resolution 1874. These principles are sound and they have our full support - first, that peacekeeping expenses are the collective responsibility of all Member States; second, that the permanent members of the Security Council have a special responsibility for peacekeeping; and third, low income developing countries have a relatively limited capacity to contribute. How do we put these principles into practice?
Let me begin with the idea that peacekeeping expenses are the collective responsibility of all Member States. This common sense concept dictates that our new scale must no longer be predicated on political divisions and preconceptions. The criteria we use to place Member States in categories under the scale must be neutral, objective, and transparent. Per capita income represents a useful and credible basis for determining fair contribution levels. GNP, the very basis of the regular budget scale calculation, must also remain a fundamental determinant.
But because the existing ad hoc system is so outdated, scale revision means that some nations must bear greater financial responsibility than they do today. Many have already come forward to recognize this fact. Other countries, some with limited means, have agreed voluntarily to increase their financial participation. We should all, here and now, in the Fifth Committee today, acknowledge the dedication and foresight of those Member States who have expressed their willingness already, in public, to commit to ensuring a sound financial future for the UN. So far, eighteen nations have stated publicly that they are voluntarily willing to accept a larger burden based on their changed economic situation since 1973. The role of these eighteen needs to be read here in the Fifth Committee today: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Israel, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Malta, Oman, the Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, and UAE. Their leadership has paved the way for the rest of us to find a consensus formula that is fair to all of us. There are other nations that have told us privately that they are in the same position but not yet ready to announce their position. And I thank each and every one of the nations who is on that list, and others who have similar views, for their historic willingness to step forward voluntarily.
The scale must better reflect the diversity of the world economy. The current structure, where countries poised to increase their contributions either must stay at 20 percent, in other words an 80 percent discount, or else immediately move to no discount at all in a single step, ignores realities political, fiscal and bureaucratic. A simple rigid distinction between 80 percent discount and no discount strikes us an untenable. This great organization of all the nations of the world has more than four different levels of economic strength. Categories A, B, C and D are inadequate to the realities of the world. In order to allow countries to increase their contributions on a more graduated basis, we would support the creation of intermediate groups from middle income countries - a new bracket so to speak or new brackets - comprised of those able to pay more than 20 percent but less than 100 percent of the regular budget.
Some Member States might prefer different numbers of intermediate groups. We are ready to consider any ideas that come forward from our friends in the United Nations on a positive basis and support whatever the consensus of this organization is. Under any such system there must be automatic updates so that when countries get richer they move up, when they experience economic difficulties, even temporary ones, they get relief and they can move down without any questions being asked. Attached to the written version of my remarks, which will be available later today, is a proposal that outlines our ideas in this regard.
In addition to assuring that the scale is up-to-date and flexible, it should also adequately respect the special responsibility of all permanent members of the Security Council. In 1946, the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain and China were not only the PS, they were the top five contributors to the UN, including peacekeeping. This is no longer the case. In 1976, thirty years after the UN's founding, the P-5 were all still in the top six but by this year only three of the permanent five are among the UN's top five regular budget and peacekeeping contributors. Nineteen Member States, I repeat nineteen countries in this room will pay more than the P5 member with the lowest regular budget contribution. Fourteen will pay more for peacekeeping. This is a remarkable fact and needs to be considered by everyone in this room as they consider the evolution of the UN and in the subsequent discussions which will take place in the open-ended Working Group on Reform of the Security Council; an issue which the United States also supports.
At the same time the United States' peacekeeping assessment has continued to grow and next year we will be assessed at over 31 percent - an all time high since the scale was created and one that our government does not feel is appropriate or fair. Last month, in their historic session, Presidents Clinton, Putin, Jiang Zemin and Chirac joined Prime Minister Blair to agree on a set of principles reaffirming the P5's special role. In the coming weeks, we'll work to continue to translate this into real progress. To my fellow Ambassadors from the P-5, I want to say that it is up to us to assure that our Presidents' statements are followed-up by real commitments.
Any revision of the scale, Mr. Chairman, must also take into account the reality of low-income developing countries, and their limited capacity to pay. Our stance on this issue, as I conveyed last May, is simple: the United States will not support any proposal that would increase the peacekeeping assessment rates for countries with low per capita income. We will support measures that ensure the continuation of current 80 and 90 percent discount levels for all low-income countries. We recognize the struggle many countries face in meeting their annual contributions, and will not ask poorer nations to shoulder anything beyond what they're able to pay.
I want to talk specifically for one brief moment about South Africa, whose representative just spoke. I think South Africa exemplifies the current problem. They are a victim of the UN Fifth Committee's failure to adapt the ad hoc scale to changing economic realities. Placed in Group B in 1973, South Africa has been stuck there, despite a per capita income level that is now below the world average. As we said in May, the U.S. fully supports South Africa's request to shift groups under a peacekeeping scale. When a revised scale is adopted, South Africa will no longer be assessed at the same rate as developed countries with high per capita income. Other countries that may find themselves in a similar situation in the future should benefit from automatic adjustments so that we don't face the current situation that South Africa unfairly and regrettably faces. We support South Africa and we are deeply appreciative of their willingness last May to defer consideration of this issue until this important session. They wish to move no later than January of next year regardless of whether a revised scale is entirely in place by then. We will support the South African request.
Mr. Chairman, we look forward to discussing the details of our views and those of others during the consultations this fall. They will be intense and I'm sure will involve many long hours around the clock. It is our hope that we can capitalize on our collective will to create an improved financial structure for peacekeeping in time to support current operations. Once this new structure is in place, and once the acceptance of it has been approved by the entire membership, we will be in a position to address the financial implications of the Brahimi Report.
So, my colleagues and my friends, distinguished members of the Fifth Committee, the time is here for action. The future of peacekeeping will not survive on eloquence alone. We have about three months to succeed. The task ahead is far from easy. But I believe firmly that we can succeed as long as we focus on what is at stake - both in terms of the risks of our current course, and the potential that the UN will benefit from under an improved system.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I wish you good luck on your difficult and arduous path of leading us over the next few months.
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