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UN Financial Situation--SG Boutros-Ghali--6 February 1996
6th Meeting Of The High Level Open Ended Working Group on the Financial Situation of the United Nations
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called for a special session of the General Assembly to address the United Nations financial crisis.
He said the Organization was trapped in a downward spiral of events in which one problem created another, and the combination of problems worked against a rational solution. Addressing the High-Level Open-Ended Working Group on the United Nations Financial Situation, he said the UN must change substantially if it were to be regarded by Member States as providing good value in return for their assessments. That could not be achieved unless the downward spiral was broken.
The financial crisis had brought the United Nations to the edge of insolvency, the Secretary-General said. It faced challenges in its finances, scale of assessments, budget, structure and administration, which had to be approached realistically and rationally.
Stressing that he would do everything to avoid financial collapse, he said only Member States could take the major decisions necessary.
Unpaid assessments now exceeded $3.3 billion and the United Nations owed about $1 billion to countries that had contributed troops and equipment to peace-keeping operations.
It could no longer shift funds from the peace-keeping budget to meet shortfalls elsewhere. He would appeal to the heads of Government to make up their arrears and ask them for a proposed payment plan.
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