Fifth Committee

Taking up a number of issues dealing with the financing of peacekeeping operations, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today also heard a request on behalf of United Nations field-based organizations to reconsider the four-week rest and recuperation cycle agreed in 2011 for staff at duty stations where “danger pay” applied.

While lauding the improved financial situation of the United Nations at year-end 2011 and further progress since then, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon expressed concern over the continued cash shortages in peacekeeping operations and the subsequent lag in payments to countries providing troops and police to such operations.

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) scrutinized the financing requirements for two special political missions today, delegates complained that the backstopping and support arrangements for such missions had to be considered in a more transparent and rational way, as it currently was diminishing the United Nations ability to give the missions the operational support they required.

Despite increases in Member States’ unpaid assessed contributions, at the end of 2011 the United Nations cash situation had improved in most areas and the amount of money it owed to Member States had declined slightly, the United Nations top management official told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon, during a presentation on the Organization’s financial situation.

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) scrutinized the budget proposals today for 10 peacekeeping operations for the fiscal year 2012/13, several delegates argued against across-the-board cuts and warned that reductions in Haiti, Côte d’Ivoire, South Sudan and Kosovo could jeopardize the ability of the “blue helmets” in those countries to implement their mandates.

Since launching a five-year peacekeeping management road map in 2010, the United Nations had improved the cost-effectiveness and affordability of its blue-helmet operations without reducing their operational performance or ability to carry out their mandates, a top United Nations peacekeeping official told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today as it took up cross-cutting issues related to peacekeeping financing.

Delegates offered a range of views on how to better manage the United Nations budget for both active and closed peacekeeping missions, as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the second part of its resumed sixty-sixth session this morning and adopted its programme of work.

Following two weeks of protracted, closed-door discussions, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this evening concluded the first resumed part of its sixty-sixth session by approving a resolution that stressed the importance of promoting a culture of accountability in the United Nations Secretariat and called on the Secretary-General to improve his reporting on progress to that end.

Convening this morning to scrutinize proposals to better utilize resources for official United Nations air travel, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) agreed that the Organization must do more to avoid “egregious examples of waste” in such areas as the daily subsistence allowance to United Nations staff travelling on official business and the use of frequent flyer miles.

As the United Nations top management official this afternoon presented the Secretary-General’s progress report on creating an accountability system within the Secretariat to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), some delegates criticized it for not giving enough evidence to support its claims of success.