Decision time at UNESCO

The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, presented a roadmap to respond to current financial difficulties to the 189th session of Executive Board, meeting in Paris from 27 February to 10 March.

“The international community faces strategic cross-roads that require UNESCO’s full contribution,” said the Director-General referring to the 40^thanniversary of the World Heritage Convention, the 6^th World Water Forum, the 3^rd International Congress on Technical and Vocational Training, Rio +20, the Expo 2012 on “The Living Ocean and Coast”, the 20^th anniversary of the Memory of the World, our work on youth, including in Africa, and much more.

“All of this demands a stronger UNESCO,” declared the Director-General. “The difficulties we face call for action immediately and over the long term (…) I am pleased to have this opportunity now to report formally on my assessment of the situation, on the actions I have taken and on the steps I propose to move forward,” she continued, explaining actions that were taken to close year 2011 on balanced terms and measures put in place to help bridge the funding gap.

The Director-General highlighted the three major principles on which the roadmap is based. “First, an initial refocusing of the programmes; then, mobilizing additional resources; and last, the reduction of administrative expenses,” said Irina Bokova.

“It is vital that UNESCO manages its current difficulties while remaining focused on its objectives, its ability to maintain its status and to guide the world debate,” said the Director-General. “I think it is important to start thinking of the UNESCO that we want. There is no time to waste”.

Obama Administration Seeks UNESCO Waiver Legislation

In the UNESCO General Conference last year, Palestine was elected as a member state over the opposition of the United States. According to a provision of law a couple of decades old, the United States was then required to withhold its contributions to the Organization. Doing so has created a major problem for UNESCO in that the United States pays a portion of the UNESCO regular budget roughly proportional to the U.S. portion of the global GDP, in this case 22 percent. Funds began to be withheld with the final payment of dues for 2011, and are being withheld now.

The Obama administration plans to seek legislation to permit the President to waive the provision requiring withholding of those contributions. It is normal to allow the President to waive such provisions when it is appropriate to the foreign policy of the United States to do so. This is in keeping with the foreign policy responsibilities assigned to the president in the Constitution, and allows for more timely changes than would be possible through the Congressional process of revision of the legislation.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), chairwoman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. and Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), the senior Democrat on the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia., have announced that they will oppose that legislation. Both apparently feel that it is more important to show support for Israel in its negotiations with the Palestinians than to support the educational, scientific and cultural activities of UNESCO.

Secretary of State Clinton meeting with
UNESCO Director General Bokova

UNESCO not only implements a broad program promoting international cooperation in these fields, but it also is carrying out a number of U.S. funded projects, many of which are important to U.S. security interests and all of which have been undertaken at the initiative of the United States government. (See About the U.S. and UNESCO and U.S. Contributions to UNESCO.)

Interestingly, both Rep. Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Ackerman face redistricting, threatening their previously secure seats in the House of Representatives. The legislatures in each state will be revising Congressional districts in keeping with the changes in population revealed in the 2010 census.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami), will be based in a new District 27, centered around her Miami hometown and no longer including the Keys which were the core of the district which she represents currently. In Florida a Representative need not live in the district which he/she represents, but most do.

Representative Ackerman too is facing shifts in the borders of the district that he represents. It is reported that it's possibile that Ackerman will see his district extend into a district now represented by his congressional neighbor and fellow Democrat Carolyn McCarthy of Long Island.

The United State Government Owes UNESCO a Lot of Money!

One of the problems faced by UNESCO is that its member nations do not make their assessed contributions to the Organization on time. The United States is the worst offender, and the problem is compounded by the fact that the United States as the world's richest country has the largest assessed contributions.

A document prepared for the September meeting of UNESCO's Executive Board states:

Since 80% of the total of contributions assessed for 2009 was payable by the 12 largest contributor Member States, the dates when these major contributions are received are of crucial importance for the Organization’s cash situation. The first table gives summarized information on the contributions of these 12 Member States as at 30 June 2009:

The assessed contributions for 2009 are $316 million, and were due in January. Thus the U.S. arrears represent a considerable portion of the funding of the organization, and must been seen as causing considerable difficulties in management and performance.

Editorial: Increase UNESCO's Budget

Click on the table to enlarge it.

The General Conference of UNESCO is to approve a program and budget for the next biennium when it meets in October. The table above provides the draft budget for the Organization.

It is difficult to understand budgets, and the UNESCO Draft Program and Budget for the biennium runs to 359 pages. Still, it is clear that the budget is tiny in comparison to the challenges facing the world in education, science, culture and communications, or indeed to the needs of an intergovernmental organization such as UNESCO.

For example:

• The 2009 operational budget of my local school system (Montgomery County, Maryland) is $2.07 billion;
• The research and development budget of UCLA in 2005 was $786 million, and it was fourth in the United States that year (NSF data);
• The budget of the Smithsonian in 2007 was $999.6 million;
• The Microsoft Corp. announced revenue of $13.65 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2009.

Thus UNESCO's education program, budgetted at less than $100 million per year is less than five percent of the operational budget of a single US school system (the 16th largest in the United States in number of students). UNESCO's combined science program budgets are on the order of one fifth of the R&D budget of a single U.S. university. The budget of the culture program is on the order of six percent of the budget of the Smithsonian. The communication and information program budget is less than one percent of the budget of a single large software company.

Of course it does not make sense to put funding into programs where it will be used inefficiently, and the budget suggests that overhead may be high in UNESCO with respect to programmatic operations. Still, assuming that UNESCO can continue to improve its administration and the efficiency of its activities, it seems obvious that increased funding is appropriate for the organization.

John Daly
(The opinions expressed in this posting are the authors and do not necessarily represent those of Americans for UNESCO.)

Comments on the Budget of UNESCO

One of the more difficult issues for the students in my class has been to understand the budget of UNESCO. I did this simple spreadsheet (click on it to enlarge) to help them to understand the Organization. It describes the budget for the two year period, of almost one billion dollars.

The UNESCO budget is divided between the Approved budget funded from the assessed contributions of the member nations, and the extra-budgetary resources which are voluntary contributions made to specific projects and units of the organization. (There are lots of activities done under the UNESCO umbrella which are not included in these budgets, such as those of the so called "Category 2 Centers", National Commissions, Associated Schools, and University Chairs, not to mention the in kind services of people consulted by UNESCO.)

Note first that more than one-third of the expected funding is extra-budgetary. On the one hand, this allows the donors to direct the funding to efforts that they feel are especially valuable; on the other hand, the Organization's focus is heavily dependent on the contributions it can obtain as donations.

Part II of the budget, which includes the direct budgets for the various programs of UNESCO (including direct staff and other direct expenses), represents only about 70 percent of the total, and that is about equally divided between assessed contributions and voluntary contributions. I suspect that this is a glitch in the accounting principals. Thus the communication of UNESCO's work done via the Internet is probably accounted as supporting services, while I would regard that communication as one of UNESCO's more important functions. So too, some of the meetings hosted by UNESCO would seem to be accounted as part of the direction, but may also represent an important function of the organization as promoting dialog and serving as a clearinghouse for ideas.

Note how the balance of approved and extra-budgetary resources differs from program to program. The education program appears to be the priority for UNESCO as viewed from its Approved budget, while the natural science program would appear to be the priority of the nations making voluntary contributions.

I would also note that the budget for the social and human sciences program is smaller than that for other programs. Given the importance that improved understanding of economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, management sciences, psychology, cognitive science, etc. could have for the world, this is too bad. On the other hand, it would be hard to justify taking money away from starved programs of education, natural sciences, culture and communications to build new capacities in UNESCO. More resources are clearly needed.

If one were to take a billion dollar budget for an organization with UNESCO's charter and allocate it optimally, this is not the budget that would result. Rather this is the budget that funds the UNESCO organization and program that has evolved over six decades, under the influence of a complex legislative and bureaucratic decision making process, and the willingness of the more affluent nations to fund the Organization.

A Comment on the UNESCO Budget and U.S Policy

The UNESCO budget is divided into two parts. The regular budget, which is approved every two years by the General Conference, implements the six year mid term strategy of the organization, and is just over US$ 300 million per year. That budget is funded through assessed contributions from the member states, and the United States funds 22 percent. The other part of the budget consists of voluntary contributions from the member states, and is estimated at some US$200 million per year. The United States contributes less than one million dollars a year in voluntary contributions, or less than one half of one percent.

Think about the voluntary contributions. They are not added to the general fund, but rather fund things that the contributing country negotiates with the UNESCO secretariat. Thus they do not represent the consensus budget of the 193 member states, but rather are modifications of that consensual budget desired by a single country.

I can only suppose that the secretariat is likely to feel that the regular budget is cash in hand, but inadequate to their needs, and is likely to bend over backward to make the government offering voluntary contributions happy.

The budget of UNESCO is far too small as compared with the challenges before it. From the point of view of the United States, there are many things we want done that UNESCO can better accomplish than could our bilateral programs. Moreover, UNESCO leverages U.S. contributions with funding from other donors as well as from host countries. The U.S. contribution, less than US$70 million per year seems quite a bit, unless you compare it with other figures; my local school board has a budget of $2.2 billion per year for public schools in this one county. UNESCO seeks to improve primary, secondary and tertiary education worldwide. Or compare that budget with the one-trillion dollars that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost. Could those wars have been avoided had the educational systems and communications been more supportive of Western values over the past several decades? I think it would have been worth the bet.

So, were the United States to add say $30 million in voluntary contributions per year to UNESCO's budget, that sum would be affordable and would make UNESCO a much more effective multilateral tool of U.S. foreign policy. Such a contribution would more than pay for itself in terms of security for this country, economic benefits from better development of our economic partners, accomplishment of our humanitarian objectives, improved opinions of the United States abroad, and progress on global environmental problems.

John Daly
(The opinion expressed above is mine, and does not necessarily represent that of Americans for UNESCO or any other organization.)

The UNESCO Budget

UNESCO's budget for the next two years will be set in the meeting of the General Conference in October, on the basis of the draft budget prepared by the secretariat under the direction of the Director General and the Executive Board. The key decision will be on the core budget, which is funded through assessed contributions of the member states. (There are also extrabudgetary resources contributed by many member states, that are separately determined.) The budget is approved for two years, and implements a medium term strategy of six years. In three of the past four budgets, there as a zero growth policy. Only with the return of the United States to UNESCO was the budget allowed to grow in real terms. In the current draft, there are options of including a zero growth and a modest real growth budget. My colleague has sent the following message to many of us:

Colleagues,

We must make a determined effort to see that the US supports the level of at least $648 million for UNESCO's next biennium,so that the organization can be effective in its vital mission.

Write Secretary Rice, Deputy Secretary Negroponte, President and Mrs. Bush, and the appropriate Congressional Members.and urge them to support the higher level for UNESCO's budget.

Sidney Passman

Comment: I must agree with Sid. UNESCO's is the lead agency for education, science, culture, and communications and information in the United Nations system. Its charter calls for it to strengthen these sectors worldwide, and to network vast communities. Yet its core budget is on the order of one-third of my local school district's. The United States at very little cost to the tax payer, could encourage the nations of the world to devote more resources to UNESCO's mission. To do so would help to overcome the clash of cultures and to advance peace. JAD

How to Better Finance Two UNESCO Programs

UNESCO's Information for All Program is the only intergovernmental program exclusively dedicated to promoting universal access to information and knowledge for development. It is a small program, which has been supported by nine donor nations. IPAP was created in 2000, but it has never received a donation from the U.S. government. The Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Program has been invested with the authority to speak on strategic priorities and to lobby and create awareness about issues pertaining to the use of information and ICT for development at the international level. More than 50 IFAP National Committees have been created. The program has approved and funded a number of small projects.

The International Program for the Development of Communication is a major forum in the UN system designed to develop free and pluralistic media with a global approach to democratic development. Created at the initiative of the United States, it currently receives support from 25 governments, including that of the United States. It also accepts donations from individuals (but requires them to be made by bank transfer.) The program is managed by an Intergovernmental Council and its Bureau. Over the last quarter century, IPDC has mobilized some US$ 90 million for over 1000 projects in 139 developing countries and countries in transition.

Suggestion: An website should be created to allow individual contributions to individual projects sponsored under these programs.

With the development of the Internet and the World Wide Web, a number of websites have been developed which illustrate how this might be done:

* GlobalGiving was created in 2000 by two former World Bank officials. It allows the managers of small development projects to post descriptions of those project on its website, and allows donors to make small donations online to those projects. More than $US3million has been raised through this organization, and almost all goes to the development projects themselves.

* The U.S. Peace Corps website provides facilities for individuals to donate to small projects that are posted by the PCVs themselves, thus allowing the donor to directly support a project without overhead to a charitable organization.

* Heifer International provides an online Gift Catelog allowing donors to make small gifts of livestock to projects in developing countries. An email to the organization will allow the gift to be made to a specific project -- for example, to a project introducing rabbit raising in Uganda or duck raising in Haiti.

UNESCO might create such a website for its small grants programs, or alternatively civil society (with the assistance of a corporate donor) might create one in support of UNESCO.

Click here to read an interview with the founder of GlobalGiving, describing the operation of its website for online giving.

Federal Budget Request Short-Changes United Nations, Lantos Says

Read the full press release from Representative Lantos' office.

"Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said the Administration is short-changing the United Nations in the budget proposal delivered to Congress today, which will ultimately harm national security.

“'We face a $130 million shortfall in the account used to pay U.S. dues to the United Nations,' Lantos noted. 'For the first time since the historic Helms-Biden agreement to pay off old U.S. debt the United Nations, we will once again be in arrears. This is absurd. The Administration is budgeting for massive new arrears to the United Nations at a time when we need the organization to help us in Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Haiti and a host of other global hot spots.'"