WORLD
UN cuts back on hiring and air conditioning over tight budget
Baku, May 17, AZERTAC
Shortly after Israel’s United Nations envoy began speaking to the Security Council last month about a membership bid for Palestinians, the world body’s webcast of the historic session went dark, according to Bloomberg.
The meeting, which culminated in a US veto, was running long and austerity measures imposed by UN officials prohibited overtime for camera operators and translators. That’s not all. Entry gates at the UN headquarters in Manhattan now close earlier, air conditioning has been throttled back even as summer temperatures start to rise and the world body has imposed a hiring freeze.
The UN has long struggled financially. Top contributors including the US are often late in making their payments, UN officials say, even as an ever-growing roster of crises worldwide increase demand for the organization’s services. Those struggles were exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and by the Trump administration’s decision to cut funding to humanitarian and development efforts.
The organization’s financial woes have turned “into a full-blown liquidity crisis,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote in a letter to member states in January. The UN is currently owed more than $1.7 billion, as more than a third of states haven’t completed paying their dues for this year and others haven’t even sent their 2023 contributions.
The US, the organization’s biggest contributor, and China, the second-largest, owe the UN about $762 million and $380 million respectively in assessed contributions for this year, according to deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq.
Washington will pay its dues once its next fiscal year starts in October, according to a spokesperson for the US mission to the UN. Li Zhimin, spokesman for China’s mission, said “China and the US differ significantly in this regard,” adding that Beijing has already paid $100 million this year as part of its payment plan.
Although some of the UN’s money-saving moves seem mostly symbolic, officials say the budget crunch is having real-world effects.