Members of the UN General Assembly's (UNGA) Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) has approved its programme of work for the 71st session, with Member States identifying their priorities for the session, including forming an outline for UN's two-year multi-billion-dollar budget for 2018-2019, and financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
29 September 2016: Members of the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) have approved its programme of work for the 71st session, with Member States identifying their priorities for the session, including forming an outline for UN’s two-year multi-billion-dollar budget for 2018-2019, and financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Convening for the Committee’s organizational session, on 29 September 2016, in New York, US, Member States elected Inga Rhonda King (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) as the Committee’s Chair and Marina Nikodijevic (Serbia) as Vice-Chair of its 71st session.
Thailand for the Group of 77 and China (G-77/ China), Singapore for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Dominican Republic for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Chad for the African Group, and Pakistan stressed that they attach high priority to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD). CELAC, along with and Antigua and Barbuda for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), expressed concern over the delay of a comprehensive proposal by the UN Secretary-General on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the AAAA.
Among other issues highlighted by Member States: CELAC said it will be paying great attention to the programme budget implications (PBI) of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, adopted on 20 September 2016; Norway said the Committee should prioritize addressing the financing of the Secretariat’s share of the resident coordinator system (RC), adding that RC financing is “critical” for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda; and China expressed hope that the Committee will formulate “a reasonable budget outline” for the 2018-2019 biennium.
With regard to the scale of assessments, which determines Member States’ contributions to UN regular budget expenses and peacekeeping operations, Japan called for a more “equitable” methodology to better reflect each Member State’s real and current capacity to pay its assessments, while G-77/China rejected any change in the methodology that would increase contributions for developing countries. [UN Meeting Coverage]