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STORY: UN / BUDGET
TRT: 2.20
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ PORTUGUESE/ FRENCH/ JAPANESE/ NATS
DATELINE: 27 OCTOBER 2011, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
27 OCTOBER 2011, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, dais
3. Pan left, delegates
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“The budget before you reflects a central challenge, how to resource this organization at a critical time. The financial crisis is crippling many countries. Governments and especially people are struggling. In these difficult circumstances the world is turning more and more to the United Nations for answers and help.”
5. Wide shot, delegates
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“I am proposing a budget of 5.197 billion dollars before re-costing. This is 3.7 percent below the approved budget outline of 5.396 billion dollars and that represents savings of almost 200 million dollars while still enabling us to deliver fully on our mandate.”
7. Pan left, delegates
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Collen V. Kelapile, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ):
“The short time available for the program managers to carry out the review requested by the Secretary-General did not allow for such a review to be done in a comprehensive manner. As a result the Committee has observed that when viewed in the context of the budget as a whole, the reductions proposed are neither significant nor structural in nature. Such reductions are also unlikely to be sustainable in the future.”
9. Pan left, delegates
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Diego Limeres, Minister, Deputy Permanent Representative of Argentina to the United Nations:
“At this point it would only make sense that the United Nations redoubles its efforts to assist the poorest and most vulnerable corners of the world. However, the United Nations seems to be moving into the opposite direction. Instead of strengthening the Organization’s role for an enhanced development strategy in this time of crisis, there is a clear tendency to cut funds. This is a tragic situation.”
11. Zoom out, conference room
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today (27 October) presented a proposed budget of nearly $5.2 billion for the United Nations to carry out the important work that Member States have entrusted to it in areas ranging from peace and security to human rights and development over the next two years.
Ban told the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, which deals with administrative and budgetary matters, that the proposed budget reflects the “central challenge” of resourcing the Organization during a financial crisis which “is crippling many countries.”
He pointed out that “governments and especially people are struggling” and “the world is turning more and more to the United Nations for answers and help.”
Ban said the proposed $5.197 billion budget is 3.7 percent below the approved budget outline of 5.396 billion dollars and represents savings of almost 200 million dollars “while still enabling us to deliver fully on our mandate.”
The proposals reflect a wide range of adjustments based on efficiencies, improvements and investments, with a net decrease of 44 posts as well as cost-cutting for travel, consultants, general operating expenses, supplies, materials and equipment.
Collen V. Kelapile, Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) told the meeting that although the Committee agreed in general terms with the Secretary General’s proposal, “the short time available for the program managers to carry out the review requested by the Secretary-General did not allow for such a review to be done in a comprehensive manner.”
He said that as a result, “the reductions proposed are neither significant nor structural in nature” and are “unlikely to be sustainable in the future.”
Speaking on behalf of the G.77, Argentinean Ambassador Diego Limeres said that at this time of economic crisis “it would only make sense that the United Nations redoubles its efforts to assist the poorest and most vulnerable corners of the world”
However, he said, the UN “seems to be moving into the opposite direction” and “there is a clear tendency to cut funds.”
Limeres said that this was “a tragic situation.”
The proposed budget is 3.2 per cent less than the current one. Earlier this year the Secretary-General called for a 3 per cent cut in the next UN budget, in line with the sluggish global economy as the world struggles to emerge from the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
It is now up to Member States to discuss and decide on the ultimate budget to be adopted by the General Assembly in December for the next two years.
