Press Conference by Under-Secretary-General for Management on 2010-2011 Budget

Offering highlights from the United Nations budget at Headquarters today, Angela Kane, Under-Secretary-General for Management, described a changing United Nations landscape marked by the steady growth of special political missions and more than half the Organization’s staff involved in peacekeeping.

Addressing journalists at a press conference, Ms. Kane provided explanations of cuts and additions made by Member States to the Secretary-General’s original budget proposal, resulting in an approved initial appropriation of $5.2 billion on 24 December.

She said special political missions, expected to cost approximately $1 billion over the next two years, formed a significant chunk of the 2010-2011 biennium budget, reflecting a steady growth of such missions over time and a 22 per cent increase over previous levels.  The amount approved by the Assembly for 2010 alone totalled $569 million, $30 million less than suggested by the Secretary-General.

But aside from special political missions, the budget generally stayed flat, she said.  In crafting the draft budget, the Secretary-General had been mindful of an economic climate that was “not conducive to a very lavish budget”. 

Items whose budgets were reduced most drastically were external printing, whose allotted funds went down by $1 million, and consultants and experts, which went down by 7 per cent, she said. 

The budget for business continuity management ‑‑ set up to ensure that the United Nations could continue working in the face of an influenza pandemic, among other risks ‑‑ was also reduced extensively, she said, with the Assembly agreeing to re-examine that item in the next budget cycle.  The United Nations unified disaster recovery programme was cut down to $1.5 million, including funding for the Brindisi enterprise data centre.

Not all the changes amounted to cuts, Ms. Kane said, as shown by the Assembly’s decision to approve $24 million to test the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in a limited context, and to its decision to establish a United Nations Information Centre in Luanda, Angola.

And, having already weathered significant cuts in the previous budget cycle, the Assembly allowed the Office of Central Support Services ‑‑ responsible for building and infrastructure maintenance -- to go unscathed, she said, allowing the same for the Development Account.

Several journalists raised questions relating to contractual arrangements for United Nations staff, many of which were deferred by Member States to the 2010 fall session.  The deferrals were in keeping with the Assembly’s custom of addressing human resources issues in the second year of the two-year budget cycle. 

Among the human resource questions put on hold was that of “geographic mobility” ‑‑ geographi