By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, February 2 --When the US proposed budget for its State Department was released on February 2, it included a $10 million increase in proposed funding for the UN regular budget. Under this, three UN missions -- for Afghanistan, Libya and Ebola response -- were combined together for a request of $42 million. Documenthere, at Page 43.
On a background call, Inner City Press asked about this, including if the estimate for the UN Support Mission in Libya is impacted by that Mission hardly being present on the ground in the country anymore.
A Senior State Department Official replied, focusing on Afghanistan, telling Inner City Press that, “we believe that the funding level is probably doing to stay constant over the FY 2016 period. The funding levels that we've got for the political missions are for six months assessment for Afghanistan. We believe that that funding level then will catch up the the second six money will catch up. So that you'll be seeing a lag on the overall payment there.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has made a range of claims about his budgets, the consistency with the US request we are still evaluating. For now, here is the State Department transcript:
OPERATOR:
Thank you. That’s Matthew Russell Lee from Inner City Press. Please
go ahead.
INNER
CITY PRESS: Sure, thanks a lot. I was looking at the UN section of it
– I think it’s around page 43 – and I just – I noticed that
for the mission – special political missions in Afghanistan and
Libya and also the mission on Ebola, they’re all kind of lumped
together at $42 million. I mean, it may have something to do with the
way the UN has funded them, but can you – is there any breakout of
that, and particularly this – given that the UN mission in Libya is
actually no longer present on the ground in the country, is that –
do you expect that number to go up or go down?
SENIOR
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: So we believe that that funding level
is probably going to stay constant over the FY 2016 period. The
funding levels that we’ve got for the political missions are for a
six-month assessment for Afghanistan. And we believe that that
funding level then will catch up the second six months, so you’ll
be seeing a lag on the overall payment there.
Other questioners on the embargoed call asked about the Green Climate Fund, Moldova and Georgia, migration and the so-called Cromnibus or Continuing Resolution / Omnibus, which has provisions impacting funding to the UN based on protecting whistleblowers (dubious) andcombating sexual exploitation and abuse (same), as well as on funding to the Palestinian Authority. We are digging into each of these. Watch this site.