Monitoring Policy Making at the United Nations |
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Millenium Mobilization, 
Millennium Mobilization
to Demand
Full and Adequate Funding
for the
United Nations and the UN SystemAugust 1999
The United Nations is on the brink of financial ruin largely because the United States has refused to pay over a billion dollars of assessed dues. Governments of many other countries share responsibility for the crisis because they have done little to solve it and because they have cut back their own vital voluntary contributions to UN programs and agencies.
Several industrialized countries have recently slashed their payments to the UN Development Program, while many governments have turned their back on appeals for help in African and other humanitarian emergencies. The UN has been forced to cut staff and to downsize its essential operations on development, finance, trade, human rights, food security, health, disarmament and peace.
We citizens cannot accept the decline and permanent financial crisis of this organization that embodies our hope for the common future of humanity. Nor can we accept major countries use of non-payment to impose unilateral conditions on the UN in violation of international law.
At a time of rapid globalization, individual governments cannot solve the great problems of today and tomorrow. Nor can we rely on transnational corporations or the market to provide us automatically with peace and well-being. It is time for citizens and organizations to assume responsibility and to act to claim our rightful role in a democratic global governance!
Under the auspices of the NGO Millennium Forum at the UN, we are organizing a "Millennium Mobilization" to ensure full and adequate funding for a stronger United Nations and UN System. We will educate and mobilize the public so as to ensure full and adequate funding of the United Nations and the UN System.
This mobilization will be central to the NGO initiative for the millennium. The Mobilization will reach out to millions of citizens world wide and engage them in discussion, debate and action, to make governments responsible for UN funding, to support the programs we so urgently need.
The organizing principle of this mobilization will be the full, timely and unconditional payment of all UN assessments, in accordance with the UN Charter. We also will ask for strengthened budgets and larger voluntary contributions. All countries must be called on to take action.
The mobilization will call for the following:
Payment by all member states of all arrears to the UN regular and peacekeeping budgets, in full and without condition, leading up to the millennium year. Payment by all member states of all arrears to specialized agencies, in full and without condition.
Effective disincentives for states not fulfilling their obligations. Agreement by all member states to a much-needed increase in the UN budget in real, inflation-adjusted terms
Real term increases in the budgets of specialized agencies and funds that have also suffered recent cuts in assessments and voluntary contributions
Serious consideration to be given to new and innovative forms for raising funds, including global taxes and fees, to support the budget of the UN system. Serious consideration to be given to plans to divert military expenditures to civilian purposes, including the funding of peace and security initiatives through the UN.
October 23, 1999
Mobilization Day on UN FinanceThe Millennium Mobilization calls for a worldwide day of education and action on October 23, the day before UN day. This day has been the occasion of worldwide vigils in the past three years. We call on citizen groups in all countries and continents to organize events, giving attention to the crisis and the pressing need for its resolution.
Some will choose to hold vigils, such as those held in forty-two cities in 1998. Others will want to hold public meetings, deliver messages to embassies of delinquent countries and to public officials, write letters to the editor, issue statements, hold fasts, offer prayers, hold debates and teach-ins, or other activities best suited to local conditions and concerns. Events may take place during UN Day or during the preceding week, as local schedules permit.
The Millennium Mobilization will continue its work into and through the Millennium Year, but our success must build on the momentum of October. So, join us on Mobilization Day. Work with citizens and groups in your community. Don't let shortsighted governments wreck the UN! Let us together mobilize to ensure that the United Nations can develop and truly be prepared to meet the challenges and possibilities of the new millennium.
