BUDGET AND MANAGEMENT ISSUES AT UNESCO'S AUTUMN 2008

UNCLAS PARIS FR 002007 SIPDIS SENSITIVE STATE FOR IO/UNESCO AND IO/MPR E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: UNESCO AORC SUBJECT: BUDGET AND MANAGEMENT ISSUES AT UNESCO'S AUTUMN 2008 EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING ¶1. Summary: UNESCO's Executive Board at its autumn 2008 Executive Board meeting (September 30-October 21) set in motion the process of preparing the program and budget for the 2010-2012 biennium. In this regard, the Board merely took note of the Director General's plea for a Zero Real Growth (ZRG) budget without endorsing it. The Board also struggled to agree on program priorities in the next biennium. While there was general agreement on the main goals (e.g., EFA), member states often seemed more interested in defending pet programs than in focusing UNESCO's resources to achieve a limited number of measurable results. ¶2. Summary continued: Member states also spent much time discussing UNESCO's steps to implement UN reform and the implementation of Triennial Policy Compliance Report. These deliberations notably led to an extended discussion of UNESCO's cost recovery policy on extra-budgetary contributions. Germany succeeded in obtaining passage of a decision that invites the Director-General to develop guidelines for cost recovery policy that are based on a well-defined support cost measurement methodology, so that UNESCO's core budget does not end up subsidizing programs that are funded through extra-budgetary contributions. ¶3. Summary continued: The Board also spent time trying to deal with the implications of reports by the Organization's External Auditor, France's Cour des Comptes. Member states took the occasion to follow up the Auditor's critical report at the spring 2008 Board on the Organization's publication policy. They expressed disappointment that the Director-General's new publication policy does not include a distribution plan and invited the Director-General to present a revised publication and distribution plan at the next Board session. Member states were also outraged by the Auditor's report on the Foresight office which indicated the Organization had ignored poor performance by the office director over a period of many years. Speaking to members in private session, the Director-General expressed frustration with the French and UN personnel procedures that must be followed in this case. The office director, he insisted, is entitled to due process. Any premature effort to terminate him for poor performance would be overturned by the International Labor Organization's Tribunal. The Director-General assured member-states that he would have the Internal Oversight Service thoroughly investigate the Foresight office's financial dealings, and that he would have the office director's supervisor include the Auditor's findings in a performance report which would conclude with a finding of poor performance. Such a report could eventually become the basis for disciplinary action, once the director has had a chance to challenge the facts in it. End Summary. Program and Budget of the 2010-2012 Biennium ¶4. UNESCO's autumn 2008 Executive Board set in motion preparation of the Organization's budget for the 2010-2012 biennium. Member states adopted decisions determining the assumptions that the Secretariat will use in drafting the next program and budget (C/5). This draft will be submitted to the Executive Board at its April 2009 session and ultimately approved in its final form at the October 2009 General Conference. (Comment: Four different scenarios were produced during the last budget and program cycle because of disagreements on the budget level. Only one scenario will be produced for the next C/5.) Budget Ceiling ¶5. Member states' first task was determining the overall budget ceiling which the Director-General should use for the draft 35 C/5. Director-General Matsuura argued passionately that he must be allowed to prepare a ZRG budget, which he calculated requires a $40 million increase over the $631 million ceiling in the current biennium. Matsuura maintained that the Organization would have to cut services, if members do not give it a budget that keeps pace with inflation. ¶6. Member states reacted cautiously to the Director-General's appeal. A few (e.g., Brazil and South Africa) said they favored increasing the budget above the ZRG level, but they did not press their point of view strongly. In private discussions with the U.S. delegation, many states (e.g., Norway and Germany) said they favored ZRG, but did not believe we should assure the Director-General of such a funding level at this session of the Board. They thought we should leave the pressure on the Director-General to continue to find places where money could be saved. They cited central services and publications as areas where further cuts could be made. In general, the states (Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the UK) which argued two years ago during preparation of the Organization's current budget that UNESCO should be kept on a Zero Nominal Growth budget took the same view this time. The U.S. delegation made clear that with the U.S. election only weeks away the U.S. was in simply no position to make a commitment to ZRG or any other budget level. In the end, there was relatively little discussion of the budget level in the Board's public sessions. Member states agreed to "take note of" but not "welcome" the Director-General's proposal to prepare a $671 million ZRG budget. The Director-General is expected to present a draft budget in April calculated at the $671 million level, but members states are not committed to supporting that figure. Establishing Priorities ¶7. Member states devoted much time to debating the priorities that should guide the Organization's work in the next biennium. An 18-member drafting group (U.S., Norway, France, Lithuania, Russia, Bulgaria, Japan, Malaysia, India, Senegal, Madagascar, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Jamaica, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Algeria) put together the decision that was finally adopted on this topic. Its deliberations were difficult, however. The drafting group's Norwegian chair initially ran into resistance when he stated the group's job was to help the Director-General understand where member states wanted him to focus his efforts. Several states - most notably Brazil - argued we could not even talk about priorities, arguing that these had already been set in the Organization's Medium-Term Strategy(C/4) and could not be reconsidered by the drafting group. Brazil also maintained that Member States could not decide the programs on which the Organization should focus, because the Secretariat had provided too little information in its report on the execution of the current program (Item 180 EX/4). Many Member States agreed with this point and in the Joint Session of the Programme and External Affairs Commission and the Finance and Administrative Commission a decision was adopted that invited the Director-General improve the assessment of key results using the performance indicators identified in the current program and budget (34 C/5). ¶8. As the drafting group's discussions continued it became obvious that some developing countries feared developed countries were going to try to eliminate pet programs in the name of greater focus. For example, Morocco passionately defended the philosophy program in the Social and Human Sciences sector when one delegation suggested it might no longer be relevant. Gradually, however, over several days of discussion the drafting group did come to agreement on several areas in each of the Organization's five sectors on which the Director-General should place special emphasis. The drafting group plans to reconvene sometime after the draft C/5 is distributed to Member States in early March to review the document to see whether the suggestions of the drafting group have in fact been incorporated in the draft C/5. UN Reform and Implementation of the TCPR ¶9. European nations pressed the Secretariat repeatedly to explain what it was doing to implement the UN reform program, the "One UN" effort, and, in particular, the conclusions of the Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review (TCPR). The Finance and Administrative Commission notably adopted a decision that recalled the 2007 TCPR resolution's call for improved cooperation among UN agencies and requested the Director-General to "take all necessary measures to align UNESCO's decentralization system with the requirements of the United Nations reform." Extra-budgetary Contributions and Cost Recovery Policy ¶10. Germany's effort to obtain passage of a decision on cost recovery policy with regard to projects financed through extra-budgetary resources touched off a broad debate on the role of extra-budgetary money in financing UNESCO. The German effort was motivated by the concern expressed in UN General Assembly Resolution 62/208 and the 2007 TCPR that ". . . core resources [of UN agencies] not subsidize the projects undertaken through non-core/supplementary /extra-budgetary funding." Several states expressed concern that UNESCO is becoming too heavily dependent on extra-budgetary funds and tried to add a paragraph to Germany's draft decision that would have stressed the need for the Organization's work to be funded primarily through the regular budget. (N.B., In the current biennium, extra-budgetary contributions to UNESCO are expected to almost equal the amount the Organization receives through assessed contributions.) The U.S. delegation resisted the addition of language to the draft decision that would have essentially called on Member States to agree to a higher level of assessed contributions and, instead, obtained agreement that the decision would reaffirm "that the regular budget should continue to be the bedrock of financing the core mandate." ¶11. The most heated discussion on cost recovery pitted Germany, keen to ensure that donors of extra-budgetary funds paid the full costs of administering their programs, against Italy, a major extra-budgetary donor that was determined to ensure it did not pay more than necessary. The Italians, in particular, questioned UNESCO's practice of imposing a 13 percent Project Support Cost charge on all extra-budgetary funds, saying they were happy to pay the real costs of their programs but they were disturbed by the Secretariat's inability to itemize clearly what these costs really are. After much negotiation between Germany and Italy, the Board finally adopted a decision that had the following to say on this important point: "Invites the Director-General to further develop the 'guidelines on the cost recovery policy and budgetary aspects of extra-budgetary projects' based on a well-defined support cost measurement methodology, including clear identification and definition of costs, so that identifiable elements covered by percentage-based support-cost charges are charged as appropriate as direct costs to the project6s and the program support costs standard rate is adjusted accordingly and direct costs and indirect variable costs are not charged twice." ¶12. Many states also questioned Secretariat representatives about the so-called "Additional Program." This is a list of programs and projects assembled by the Secretariat for which there are insufficient funds in the regular budget but for which the Secretariat is soliciting extra-budgetary contributions. Although Member States have pledged $120 million for programs and projects contained in the Additional Program, the Secretariat faced many skeptical questions about the extent to which activities conducted as part of the Additional Program are coherent with the aims of the current program and budget. In the end, a paragraph was added to the Germans' draft decision that "invites the Director-General to review the proposed Additional Program in order to achieve further concentration on highest strategic priorities based on realistic delivery capacity and better alignment both with UNESCO's strategic program objectives and priorities and with the beneficiary countries' needs and priorities." Publications ¶13. Board members were not satisfied with the Secretariat's follow-up to the report on the Organization's publications policy which was presented by the External Auditor to the spring 2008 session of the Board. While the Director-General issued a policy directive in June 2008 that better defines the procedures the Organization's manager's must follow if they wish to have something published, Member States were disappointed that the Director-General has apparently done nothing to reform the way UNESCO publications are distributed, and they were not sympathetic to the Director-General's proposal that the Secretariat be given seven new positions to administer the new publications policy. The decision eventually adopted on this issue regrets the lack of a distribution plan, requests the IOS to evaluate the skills of existing staff, and directs the Director-General to present a revised publications and distribution policy to the Board at its next session. Foresight ¶14. Member States were upset by a scathing report by the External Auditor on the Foresight office. The report took office director Jerome Binde', a French national, to task for having been unable to complete in the 2002-2005 period the World Report "Towards Knowledge Societies" despite a sizeable budget and for relying far too heavily on contributors resident in France. The Auditor also sharply criticized Binde's practice of not filling two regular positions in his office and instead having the functions done by contractors in a manner which appeared to be an abuse of the Organization's contracting policies. Both Member States and the Director-General, however, were challenged to figure out a way of dealing with the situation. Faced with sentiment from Member States that Binde' should be fired, the Director-General said in private session that he could not do that straightaway. Under UN rules, Binde' is entitled to due process, or the ILO Tribunal can order UNESCO to take him back. The Director-General said he would do two things: first, he would ask the Internal Oversight Service to investigate the financial dealings of the office, especially its contracting arrangements, to see if there had been any violation of the Organization's policies; and, second, he would ask the Binde's supervisor to prepare a performance report on Binde' that mentions the criticisms of the External Auditor. Once Binde' has had a chance to challenge those criticisms, the Organization can move against him for documented poor performance. (Note: Speaking privately to DCM, the Director-General's chief of staff, expressed great frustration with the situation. She said she had really wanted to suspend Binde', but had been unable to do so because Binde' had gone out on sick leave. Under relevant labor regulations, an employee cannot be disciplined while on sick leave. End Note.) Faced with the Director-General's explanation, member states adopted a decision that notes the lack of adequate internal controls in the Organization and asks the Director-General to report on what measures have been taken in its next session. ¶15. Comment: The Foresight situation puts the Director-General in a very difficult spot and illustrates the management problems that remain at UNESCO. Binde's poor performance was an open secret among delegations for many years and yet it was effectively ignored. The director-General presumably was reluctant to offend UNESCO's French hosts by disciplining one of their nationals. The fact that the French External Auditor has found fault with Binde has changed the situation and made it impossible for France to protect its citizen anymore. Now the Director-General is under great pressure to take disciplinary action when his staff have not laid the groundwork for doing so. If he cannot discipline Binde' soon, he risks looking impotent. This is particularly bad, as he approaches his last year in office with a staff that has always tended to be insubordinate. OLIVER