Summary: EU Presidency Statement - Proposed Programme budget for biennium 2006-07 (25 October 2005: New York)
EU Presidency Statement on Item 124: Proposed Programme budget for the biennium 2006-2007, by HE Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Permanent Representative, the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, on behalf of the European Union, Fifth Committee, United Nations, New York
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The Acceding Countries Bulgaria and Romania, the Candidate Countries Turkey and Croatia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, EFTA country Iceland, member of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova align themselves with this declaration.
I should like to start by thanking the Secretary-General for his introduction to the budget. We also thank the Controller and his team for producing the comprehensive proposals, the acting Chair of the ACABQ for their detailed and exhaustive review, and the Vice-Chair of the CPC for its comments on the new budget items that have emerged since the adoption of the biennial programme plans a year ago. The EU will offer more detailed comments on the report of the CPC when it is discussed under the
programme planning agenda.
Mr Chairman,
Negotiations on the biennial budget are always complex and demanding, but they are critical to defining the capacity of the UN to meet the tasks which the membership assigns to it. The UN is constantly facing new challenges as it seeks to promote the Millennium Development Goals in a secure world underpinned by human rights and the rule of law.
This year's negotiation, which will take important resource decisions for financing the UN for the next two years, is no exception. All of our delegations have reflected at length this year, before and during the World Summit, on the management reforms needed and the other measures agreed upon in the Outcome document to help the UN meet new challenges. I am not going to revisit these important debates here. They are ongoing, the EU's positions are well known, and we have yet to see the full
resource requirements with their appropriate justification to implement these reforms. Rather, I wish to offer some EU reflections on the content of the proposed programme budget as a whole, which will necessarily include some of the additional costs for implementing reforms, and our priorities for the upcoming negotiation.
At the outset, Secretary General, I wish to take this opportunity to commend your leadership of the organisation and assure you of the full support of the EU in providing to you the adequate resources and the flexibility needed for the UN to continue its vital work across the globe, reflecting the priorities identified by the General Assembly. We look to you to continue to provide the leadership of the organisation that it needs to take us towards successfully reaching the Millennium
Development Goals and for you to exercise effectively your authority as chief administrative officer of the United Nations as per Article 97 of the Charter. We pledge to support your efforts in this respect and will work to remove any unnecessary constraints that hinder you in your mission.
The current Regular Budget proposal is approaching the $4 billion level with the implementation costs emerging from the World Summit and the various additional requirements that are under discussion in other Committees. This continues a trend of expansion over the last four years at a time when Peacekeeping commitments have also risen sharply to over $5 billion, and the financial requirements for the International Criminal Tribunals to $300 million on an annual basis. We also anticipate new
developments regarding the Capital Master Plan. In just two budget cycles, therefore, we have seen a rise of nearly $1.4 billion, well over 50%, in requirements, which represents a significant change from the more stable budgetary levels of the past.
We should not underestimate the pressures these increases have placed on a very wide spectrum of the membership, including the EU which currently pays 37% of Regular Budget contributions. We stress once again that when new requirements emerge, it is vital for the Secretariat to respond with a more highly prioritised approach to programming and that comprehensive and thorough assessments and decisions on the continuing validity of activities are needed. The EU recognises that, for the UN to
achieve its goals, the budget must provide sufficient funding for the organisation to carry out the mandates assigned to it. We also recognise that these major increases have reflected the increasing demands on the UN. Nevertheless, we believe that it will be essential to identify some saving potential in the present budget proposal for 2006/2007. In particular, we need to revisit all mandates on a frequent basis to confirm that original decisions remain valid and that the organisation is
dealing with the most important problems. We stress here the importance of results-based budgeting in making the work of the organisation more effective and dynamic.
Secretary-General,
The EU commends you for the clarity of the introductory section of the budget which gives us a clear focus on the budget in its entirety. The EU intends to take a strategic approach to consideration of your proposals through an assessment of existing capacity in the organisation coupled with the need and resources of each programme to deliver the results and objectives laid out in the strategic framework. Such a framework becomes even more important with the Summit implementation. We believe
this is a better approach than, for example, agonising over whether a new P3-level staff member is required in a particular department to carry out a specific task. This sort of negotiation - looking only at the proposed increments in the budget - has become the norm in this Committee and has not served the interests of the UN well.
Secretary-General, the EU supports strongly the management reforms envisaged in the Summit declaration. We welcome the leadership which you have demonstrated and which needs now to spread more widely and deeply to other managers in the organisation. We hope that you will make this one of your top priorities for the remainder of your term. For a number of departments, we are offered "business as usual" proposals with structures and purpose little changed from the past. You should encourage
managers not to be shy in making radical or creative proposals and to go much further in proposing a re-balancing of their resources or recommending the termination of outdated activity to finance new tasks, while you preserve and foster the overall strategic approach. In particular, senior managers must take responsibility for the proposals for their own departments and demonstrate how they intend to achieve their objectives within their proposed budgetary allocations. It is not for a
committee of 191 members to do this and we continue to look for strengthened management and leadership from within. The EU will support this effort by seeking to enhance the decision-making and resource allocation powers of you and your managers but with a boost in accountability to the General Assembly in how they are exercised.
I will now comment on a number of cross-cutting issues that strike us from the budget proposal. The first of these is that of staffing. We will consider the new posts requested in the context of the overall capacity of the relevant departments and seeking to assess whether their defined objectives contribute to those of the UN. More specifically, we will seek assurance that all efforts to meet these new needs through redeployment or restructuring have been exhausted, not just within the
specific programme concerned, but across the Secretariat as a whole. We need to move away from the assumption that posts are somehow owned by individual programmes. Our assumption is that better management is made possible by more flexibility for the Secretary-General in management of staff and their increased mobility. But in return, we expect full transparency and accountability in how that flexibility is exercised.
Given the fact that staff costs account for such a major part of the organisation's expenditure, we cannot underestimate the importance of a dynamic approach to staffing allocation. The EU is disappointed that the measures taken two years ago in the previous budget negotiation to encourage such an approach within the Secretariat produced such meagre results. The limited flexibility granted to move 50 posts at will within the staffing complement was not acted on until very late in the day.
Similarly, there was clearly little appetite within the Secretariat to respond to the freeze on recruitment of GS staff with a wholesale re-evaluation of support functions and redeployment of available resources. We remain to be convinced that the Secretariat is sufficiently seized of this issue. We urge a more proactive and constructive approach to Human Resource management in the next biennium, which should involve a revitalised dialogue with the Staff Associations.
As important as the quality of UN staff, is the need for them to be provided with the best tools with which to carry out their work. I refer here to Information and Communication Technologies. We look to ICT to contribute further to flexible staffing practices, unleashing the huge potential of the UN's institutional knowledge and streamlining previously cumbersome administrative and decision-making processes. ICT-systems must serve the goals of the UN while enhancing real cost-accounting and
results-based management, to measure programmes' effectiveness. The membership has made major investments in ICT systems in the past, but we need to reassess whether these are the systems that will take the UN into the next decade and beyond. We also question whether the UN has cracked the difficult problem of the proliferation of systems between UN departments, peacekeeping operations and other system bodies. No discussion of organisational efficiency can afford to duck these important
questions. In these fields, oversight bodies could make a significant contribution. However, we should caution that ICT should not be seen as an end in itself. There is no sense in automating inefficient processes. We expect a return-on-investment analysis of every new major ICT investment, comparing financial and other benefits with the present situation.
Another issue of concern to us is that of duplicative activity within and between duty stations. We have sought information on the clear division of labour in the past, in several areas, including between the regional economic commissions and DESA and on the statistics work carried out in the UN system.
We recognise the difficulties - duplication is hard to track when the budget is chopped up into separate sections under different structures. Cross-cutting issues are therefore difficult to piece together, especially when activity is spread out between different duty stations. But we have carefully noted the examples presented in the report of the ACABQ and we will pursue these further.
I should like to comment now on the report of the ACABQ, and reiterate our appreciation to the acting chair for his introduction. The EU very much values this year's report and considers it as a good starting point for our discussion, although we would like to have seen the ACABQ also produce some concrete figures with regard to possible savings. The report struck us as being very different to its predecessors. While making a number of detailed recommendations on posts and other costs, the
overall thrust is more strategic than in the past. We feel that it raises a number of key questions for the Secretariat and the membership alike and challenges us to act on them. A good example is the Committee's recommendations on further improvements in the presentation of the budget, in particular the need for simplified results-based frameworks as well as defining the cost implications of the outputs proposed for each programme.
The Regular Budget covers a huge range of activities of great importance to the EU, such as international co-operation for development, international justice, the development of Africa and oversight of the UN itself. It is difficult to single out specific areas, but we shall briefly highlight a few for comment:
We welcome the proposal that the programmes under the Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs part of the budget should be strengthened, continuing the process of the Regular Budget taking on more of the core costs of the human rights and humanitarian work. We are looking ahead to the further proposals that will come to us following the commitment by the World Summit to boost the capacity of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. These increases must naturally be subject to fully
justified and well-presented proposals and the funds must be well managed. In a similar vein we stress the importance of implementing previous management and oversight recommendations.
On the question of information outreach, we continue our close interest in the restructuring of the UN Information Centres (UNICs) network. The budget for the Department of Public Information suggests no change for UNICs from the status quo, even though the reform plans are underway. We expect further reforms to be implemented - such as further steps in regionalisation in regions other than Europe - and that this should be reflected in the funding to be made available, including such funding to
cover restructuring plans.
I have talked at length at areas where we expect the Secretariat to take action. We as member states have a responsibility as well. A clear case of this is in the field of conference services, the costs of which take up 15% of the budget. We are fortunate to enjoy high-quality interpretation and conference servicing facilities but too often member states fail to make efficient use of them by starting late, or demanding extra meetings because of our own lack of organisation. We urge colleagues
to join us in seeking to streamline the programme of meetings and make more efficient use of this valuable resource. The EU has already made clear our determination to finish the work in this committee at a reasonable, but realistic date, and I reiterate this commitment now.
In conclusion, Secretary-General, the EU is ready to begin our work and to engage with all negotiating partners in a constructive debate. We will work towards a similar outcome of two years ago in terms of the format of the budget, when we ended up adopting a relatively short and simple text with key staff and financial allocations presented as annexes. We will also restrain our calls for excessive numbers of reports in the hope of streamlining our agenda next year and allowing the Secretariat
to produce a higher quality of analysis as a result.
At such a critical moment for the UN, the membership needs to provide the organisation with the financial certainty and the direction it deserves and thus a sound basis on which it can work for the next biennium. The EU pledges its support for this goal and will work for a successful conclusion this December.
Thank you
* Croatia continues to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.
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