PrintMarch 21, 2008
UN Says it needs 25% Boost in Funding
The United Nations says it needs more money - lots more.
Citing increased demands placed on its peace keeping and nation building departments, the diplomats say they need $1.1 billion more:
Much of the increased spending flows from Bush administration demands for a more ambitious U.N. role around the world. During President Bush's tenure, the United States has signed off on billions of dollars for U.N. peacekeeping operations in Sudan and elsewhere, and authorized hundreds of millions for U.N. efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, where U.N. officials helped organize elections and draft a new constitution.They could probably find the extra money in the Secretariat. No one knows what the budget for the Secretariat of the UN might be. The last attempted audit found wasteful and duplicated departments throughout thanks largely to Kofi Anan. At a time when the UN is begging for more money from its major donors, perhaps it's time to root out the waste and corruption endemic to the UN before we give them another dime.
U.N. administrative costs have more than doubled, to about $2.5 billion a year, since Bush took office, while peacekeeping expenses have increased threefold, with nearly 110,000 peacekeepers in 20 overseas missions at a 2008 cost of about $7 billion.
"This is a breakdown of a 20-year-long effort to rein in U.N. spending," said John R. Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations early in Bush's second term. "What happened in the late part of the Clinton administration, but most spectacularly in the Bush administration, is that the principle of zero nominal growth broke down completely."
Bolton tried to reform the UN but was accused of not playing well with others, stepping on toes and riling the bureaucrats. Too bad. That kind of bulldog tenacity in going after the spendthrift Secretariat is just what we need right now.
