White House proposes UN peacekeeping budget cuts

The White House budget office has proposed eliminating funding for UN peacekeeping missions, citing failures by operations in Mali, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), reports TimesLIVE. This is according to internal planning documents seen by Reuters. Washington is the UN's largest contributor – with China second – accounting for 22% of the $3.7bn core regular UN budget and 27% of the $5.6bn peacekeeping budget. These payments are mandatory. The proposed peacekeeping cuts are included in a so-called ‘Passback’, the response by the office of management and budget (OMB) to state department funding requests for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on 1 October. The overall plan wants to slash the state department budget by about half. The new budget must be approved by Congress, and legislators could decide to restore some or all of the funding the administration has proposed cutting. The OMB has proposed ending Contributions for International Peacekeeping Activities. The UN peacekeeping budget funds nine missions in Mali, Lebanon, DRC, South Sudan, Western Sahara, Cyprus, Kosovo, between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Abyei, an administrative area that is jointly run by South Sudan and Sudan. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric declined to comment on ‘what appears to be a leaked memo that is part of an internal debate within the US Government’. The US owes – for arrears and the current fiscal year – nearly $1.5bn for the regular UN budget and nearly $1.2bn for the peacekeeping budget. A country can be up to two years in arrears before facing the possible repercussion of losing its vote in the 193-member General Assembly.