Administrative and budgetary issues

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) took up its agenda item on the pattern of conferences, delegates today prodded the Secretariat to work more quickly to simplify overall efforts to shorten the length of documents and issue them on time, as well as to increase the efficient use of the Organization’s meeting facilities.

The United Nations top management official told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today that the Organization’s financial indicators for 2011 had improved in some areas even as a single Member State was responsible for 87.4 per cent of the $867 million outstanding in the regular budget.

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) took up its agenda item on programme planning today, delegates praised the work of the United Nations main subsidiary body for planning, programming and coordination and urged managers in the Secretariat to diligently implement its conclusions and recommendations concerning the programme budget for the biennium 2012-2013.

In a session during which the General Assembly was slated to scrutinize the complex methodology used to determine each Member State’s annual budget contribution, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today adopted a consensus resolution that allowed six countries to retain their voting rights even though they had fallen behind in paying their annual dues to the Organization.

Taking up the wide-ranging reports of the Office of International Oversight Services (OIOS) and the Independent Audit Advisory Committee, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon strongly supported the recent efforts and progress of those two crucial oversight bodies in strengthening the accountability and transparency of United Nations activities.

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the second meeting of its sixty-sixth session with a discussion on the scale of assessments, several delegates raised a red flag over revising the complex methodology used to set the scale if the changes boosted the contributions of developing countries.

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) adopted its programme of work for the sixty-sixth session today, delegates underscored the challenge of an intensive agenda which aims, among other things, to agree on a proposed budget for the 2012-2013 biennium by 9 December.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) met this morning to elect the remainder of its Bureau for the upcoming sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), following days of what its Chairman called “very difficult and at times unorthodox” negotiations, closed its second resumed session this morning by approving the budgets for 13 United Nations peacekeeping operations, and agreed also on a one-time supplemental payment of $85 million over the next year to troop-contributing countries.

A draft resolution concerning the financing of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was introduced today in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) by the representative of Argentina, on behalf of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China.