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Row at UN Health Agency Over Lower US Funding - UN Finance - Global Policy Forum
Row at UN Health Agency
Over Lower US FundingReuters
May 20, 2001
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been forced to withdraw its proposal to lower the US share of its budget after developing countries strongly objected to picking up the tab, diplomats said on Saturday. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Norwegian former prime minister who heads the United Nations health agency, was drawing up a revised scale of members' contributions after Cuba and Pakistan led an outcry at a heated debate on Friday evening, they added."The WHO is reviewing various compromise possibilities and we will present a new proposal to the committee on Monday," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said.
The row among the WHO's 191 member states, currently holding their annual assembly in Geneva, was sparked by a plan to cut the US share of the WHO's $842.6 million budget for the two-year period 2002-2003 by $25 million. Brundtland had recommended that the WHO follow the formula agreed under a deal last December to reduce US dues to the UN administrative budget to 22 percent from 25 percent. But poor countries protested that 52 of their members would have to make up the $25 million shortfall if Washington's share were cut by three percentage points, diplomats said."Developing countries were supposed to pick up the tab and naturally there was a lot of concern," Munir Akram, Pakistan's veteran ambassador to UN agencies in Geneva, told Reuters. "We have the weekend to try to square the circle. Dr Brundtland has to find a way of financing the shortfall without putting the burden on developing countries," he added.
Washington - whose debts to the United Nations are now close to $2 billion - owes $33.4 million in arrears to the WHO, in addition to its $108.1 million contribution for 2001, due by year-end, according to Hartl. The US delegation, which kept a low profile in the debate, could not be reached for comment. "The Americans are keeping very quiet because they stand to benefit the most," a diplomatic source said.The Bush administration, reeling from recent twin diplomatic defeats - being voted off the UN Commission on Human Rights and the UN International Narcotics Control Board - appears keen to stick to lower contributions amid congressional criticism of the world body, according to diplomatic sources.An analysis by the Group of 77 developing countries, whose rotating presidency is held by Cuba, showed that 52 developing countries stood to pay higher dues under Brundtland's proposal, they added. "The Americans want to pay less, but no one wants to pay more.
At the same time, everybody is asking the WHO to do more," a diplomatic source told Reuters.Seen as the first "test case" of whether a UN specialised agency will follow the world body's new "scale of assessments", the budget row comes at a time when the WHO is taking on new mandates, including studies on the effects of depleted uranium."In the General Assembly, a solution was found. Ted Turner came in and made the difference," Akram said, referring to the US media magnate who has made huge contributions to the UN "In this case, there was no such solution proposed," he added.
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