FIFTH COMMITTEE CONTINUES DISCUSSION ON PROPOSED CHANGES TO PLANNING, BUDGETING PROCESS

Fifty-eighth General Assembly

Fifth Committee

24^th Meeting (AM)

FIFTH COMMITTEE CONTINUES DISCUSSION ON PROPOSED CHANGES

TO PLANNING, BUDGETING PROCESS

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) continued its consideration of proposed improvements to the current process of planning and budgeting this morning, with many speakers expressing support for swift action on the Secretary-General’s reform proposals and others stressing the need for further clarification on the matter.

For today’s meeting, delegates were considering “mock-ups” of the proposed formats of a biennial programme plan and budget outline to be incorporated in a strategic framework proposed by the Secretary-General.  The United Nations Controller had introduced the mock-ups on Monday, 1 December.  The Committee first discussed the Secretary-General’s budgetary reform proposals on 31 October.

At the outset of the meeting, the representative of Botswana, speaking on behalf of the African Group, said a clear diagnosis of the shortcomings in the current planning, programming, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation process was needed.  The Organization needed a plan that would enable it to realistically set its objectives.  The role of Member States in formulating such a plan could not be overemphasized.  The Organization’s plan should constitute its principal policy directive.  Setting priorities was the prerogative of Member States and the process of review -- rather than the role of intergovernmental bodies and Member States in that process -- had to be addressed, he said.

By reviewing the programmatic aspects of the budget, the role of the Committee for Programme and Coordination obviated the need for the same review by the Fifth Committee, he added.  He attached great importance to monitoring and evaluation of programmes and fully supported efforts to improve the work of intergovernmental and expert bodies involved in those functions.  The Secretary-General’s note, however, did not address requests for clarifications on a number of proposed measures.  Further, while he fully supported the reforms proposed, he hoped more time could be allocated to the issue.

The representative of Italy, speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States, said the Committee had all the inputs it needed to work on to advance the reform, namely, one General Assembly resolution, three reports of the Secretary-General and one Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) report.  With the collaboration of all delegations, the Committee could achieve, during the main part of the fifty-eighth session, the first important advance in the budgetary reform of the United Nations.

Commending the Secretariat for its timely presentation of the mock-ups for a strategic framework, he said they provided a first indication of how such a new format would look.  The format would obviously be refined over time.  The Union fully supported the Secretary-General’s reform effort, especially his proposal to improve the current process of planning and budgeting.  Both the intergovernmental process and documentation must be rationalized and streamlined.

A biennial programme plan as proposed in the mock-ups would permit the development of a more concrete and specific review of expected accomplishments and indicators of achievement, he continued.  The Secretary-General’s proposal to formulate a two part strategic framework, comprising a biennial programme plan and a budget outline, was a modest step towards a more informed decision-making process in the Fifth Committee.  Ultimately, it would enable the Committee to better match programming and priority setting with resource implications.

Regarding the report of the ACABQ, the Union fully endorsed that body’s observation that the decision to replace the current four-year medium-term plan by a biennial programme plan was first and foremost a policy decision, and the Union was ready to take such a policy decision.

Peru’s representative, speaking on behalf of the Rio Group, said the fact that the proposed changes were minimal was one more reason for not sidestepping them.  It was a question of time, and she saw no reason not to go along with minimal changes for the medium-term plan and the budget outline.

In the discussion that followed, most speakers supported the Secretary-General’s proposals, noting that they were modest and constituted only a first step in the reform of the Organization’s budgetary process.

Norway’s representative said, for example, that the Committee had an historic chance to reform the Organization’s budget process, which would be a cornerstone for the rest of the Organization’s reform work.  While the proposed budget reform was not radical, it would make the Organization more goal-oriented, and while many delegations had questions, the Committee had solid documentation before it.  Portugal’s representative added that delaying action on the budget reform proposals would reinforce the Committee’s unfair image as a place where things were stalled and unravelled.

Also urging swift action on the Secretary-General’s proposals were the representatives of the Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Finland, Germany, Brazil, Spain, France, Greece, the Czech Republic, Colombia, Venezuela, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Chile, Poland, Denmark, Turkey, Lithuania, Costa Rica, Mexico, Latvia, Hungary, Iceland, Argentina and Romania.

Several speakers, however, noted that, while they fully supported the Secretary-General’s efforts to reform the Organization, clarification on the proposals to reform the budget process was needed before taking an informed decision on the matter.  The representative of Iran noted that, while change was necessary, changes should be considered on the basis of their merit, and not for the sake of change.  Cuba’s representative said it was important to make clear what kind of mock-ups and guidelines should be adopted.  Egypt’s representative, while supporting the Secretary-General’s efforts to strengthen the Organization, said the ACABQ report had made specific requests that required clarification from the Secretariat.

The reform of the budgeting process was too important to reduce it to cosmetic and symbolic changes, Algeria’s representative said.  Approving proposals just because they were modest would lead to the conclusion that reform was just an exercise in itself.  The representatives of Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Nigeria and Sierra Leone also supported the statement of the African Group.  Syria’s representative asked the Secretariat for written clarification on questions related to the ACABQ report and for an explanation of what the workload of the Fifth Committee was in the current process.  The representatives of Ethiopia and Canada proposed further discussing the matter in informal consultations.

Responding to delegates’ comments, Warren Sach, the Director of the Programme Planning and Budget Division, said the Committee’s lengthy discussion was illustrative of the importance of the issue before it.  The Secretariat had not formally included all the information available for the Committee’s consideration in response to issues raised by the ACABQ and a number of elements had been informally addressed in the supplementary information presented during informal consultations.

Addressing specific technical issues, he said that on the question of the timing of the consideration of the biennial programme plan and budget outline, both those elements would be part I and part II of the strategic framework.  Part I would be considered by the Committee for Programme and Coordination (CPC) in May or June of each off-budget year and approved by the General Assembly in the same year.  Although it would come out in an off-budget year, its issuance would be after review by the CPC of the budget plan.  The budget outline, a resource-based outline, would be issued in sequence in the same year as the plan, but taking advantage of the CPC’s discussion.

In terms of time, with a two-year cycle, a plan from initiation to completion would be reduced by two years, he said.  The long seven-year cycle for initiation to completion would be reduced to five years.  Regarding the request for clarification on the medium-term plan as an instrument of policy, rather than a listing of activities, the Secretariat wanted to fully utilize the logical framework of a results-based approach.  At the time of preparation of the 2002-2005 medium-term plan, the Assembly had not adopted results-based budgeting.  The new period would be the first to implement the results-based budgeting arrangements and would use the logical framework that was an intrinsic part of that arrangement.

Regarding the level of detail on outputs and resource requirements made available to Member States in budget fascicles, he said there would be no change regarding the level of detail on resource requirements.  The Committee for Programme and Coordination would continue its full review of the biennial programme plan and the Fifth Committee would receive a set of recommendations, relieving it of going through a detailed drafting exercise.

The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. Thursday, 4 December, to continue its work.

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