40 NGOs call on US to fully fund peacekeeping

Forty US non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are calling on Congress to fully fund Washington's share of UN peacekeeping operations, many of which have been promoted by the Bush administration. The groups, which include the National Council of Churches USA, Citizens for Global Solutions and Oxfam America, said Washington will be close to $850 million short of its obligations to UN peacekeeping through the end of the current fiscal year, Sep. 30, and $1.3 billion by the end of fiscal 2008, unless it increases its contributions. "Not only are we endangering our reputation, we are compromising the hard work of the tens of thousands of individuals involved in humanitarian and peacekeeping missions worldwide," said Deborah Derrick, director of the UN Foundation/Better World Campaign, which circulated the letter. "It is imperative that we fulfill our commitments to the United Nations and the broader international community," she added. "Simply put, we can't afford not to pay our bills." The letter also urged Congress to increase proposed funding in upcoming appropriations bills for many of the 44 UN and other multilateral agencies the US is required to support by treaty. Failure to do so would mean that Washington will likely fall some $130 million short of its treaty obligations to such key agencies as the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization and NATO by the end of fiscal 2008, they said. The letter, which was also signed by CARE-USA, the International Crisis Group and Refugees International, comes as Congress begins its consideration of the administration's proposed 2008 foreign aid bill, which has already come under fire by many of the same groups for reductions in development assistance and child and maternal health programs. Those programs, which include rural development, education, family planning and environmental projects, is slated to shrink by a third over the current year's level to just over $1 billion in 2008, even as funding for global anti-AIDS efforts is set to rise to more than $4 billion. The United States is obliged to provide 26 percent of the official assessments of peacekeeping operations approved by the UN Security Council, although Congress set a cap of 25 percent during the Clinton administration. But US contributions have not kept pace with the actual costs incurred by key peacekeeping missions, many of which, notably those in Haiti, Liberia, Lebanon and Sudan, have been strongly promoted by the Bush administration. Congress has already budgeted nearly $1.09 billion for some 16 UN peacekeeping operations in fiscal 2007, and the Bush administration has requested $200 million more in its 2007 supplemental appropriations bill. For 2008, it has requested only $1.07 billion for the same account. But those figures fall far short of what most experts believe will be Washington's required share of the actual costs of the same operations. One group of experts, the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping (PEP), has estimated the costs of the 16 operations for the 2006-07 period at $5.7 billion and for the 2007-08 period at $6.4 billion. Unless Washington increases its share, its shortfalls for each year will run at $453 million and $659 million, respectively, according to PEP. Going into 2007, however, US arrears for UN peacekeeping stood at $391 million. Even if, as appears likely, the $200 million in the supplemental is approved, Washington will still be short some $1.3 billion by the end of the 2008 fiscal year. Democrats have already complained about the administration's failure to ask for more. After the 2007 supplemental and 2008 requests were presented to Congress last month, the chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Tom Lantos, called the situation "absurd." "The administration is budgeting for massive new arrears to the United Nations at a time when we need the organization to help us in Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Haiti and a host of other global hot spots," he said. "We're digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole," said Scott Paul, a Citizens for Global Solutions analyst, noting that two recent US studies, including one by Congress' Government Accountability Office and another by the Rand Corporation, found that UN peacekeepers have generally served as the most effective force in bringing stability and peace to nations in conflict in recent years. "These are missions the US votes for in the Security Council and for which the US would spend substantially more in lives and treasure to deal with," he said, adding that the administration has consistently produced over-optimistic projections about the success or necessary size of UN missions. For the peacekeeping operation in Lebanon, for example, the administration projected total costs for fiscal 2008 at $618 million, but PEP believes costs will likely come to around $1 billion. For the UN's most expensive mission, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the administration estimates total costs next year at $623 million, when PEP believes that $1 billion is a more realistic figure. The administration also estimates that the costs of the UN mission in Haiti will decline next year by about $100 million–from more than $45 million this year to $350 million in fiscal 2008. PEP estimates costs next year at roughly the same as in 2007. "The US is increasingly reliant on international partnerships and allies to help us fight terrorism, prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, stabilize war-torn societies and promote democracy around the world," the letter stated. "US leadership in these partnerships requires meeting our international obligations and providing sufficient resources to meet these challenges." Among other groups that signed the letter were Americans for Democratic Action, CARE-USA, the Center for American Progress, Church World Service, International Rescue Committee, the Open Society Policy Center, Physicians for Human Rights and the United Nations Associations of the United States of America.