Resourcing International Organisations: So What?
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12471 |
| Author | Katharina Michaelowa |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
Resourcing International Organisations:
So What?
Katharina Michaelowa
University of Zurich
Abstract
The changes observed in resourcing international organisations over the last decades may have dramatic consequences for
their ability to fulfil their mandates. This paper investigates into how far reaching the expected changes really are, and
whether the new types and sources of financial and human resources can really be considered as causal for these develop-
ments. It appears that resourcing may not be the initial cause, but contributes to the centrifugal dynamics currently observed
in the multilateral system. Administrative cost related to the new and complex funding structures are considerable, and ensur-
ing transparency over resource flows represents a major challenge. Official decision-making bodies lose power to sub-groups
of members or external actors that fund parts of the organisations’activities through separate channels. Given the large vol-
ume of non-core funding and the lack of transparency, they cannot easily adjust their own priorities. It can thus not be
expected that the funding of certain activities through external channels will simply be compensated by a corresponding
reduction of core funding in this area. Whether this negatively affects the ability of the organisations to fulfil their mandates –
and hence, eventually their legitimacy –depends on the motivations of those actors empowered in this process.
Policy Implications
•The loss of trust in traditional international organisations on the one hand, and the tendency to provide them with
resources through increasingly diverse channels outside their main budget on the other hand, is a mutually reinforcing
process.
•The use of these alternative channels leads to a substantial reduction of the power of formal decision-making bodies in
these organisations, and to a redefinition of priorities that they cannot simply compensate by corresponding adjustments
in their own budget.
•At the same time, specific sub-groups of members and some external funders such as private companies or philanthropic
organisations gain influence. Depending on the type of actors and their motivation to truly promote the global goals of
the organisation, this may be either an efficient way to move things forward, or lead to a problematic diversion of the
organisations’key activities and negatively affect the organisations’legitimacy.
•It is not yet clear, which actors will dominate in the future. This calls for a close monitoring of the ongoing dynamics, and
for the definition of clear rules for the organisations’partnership with external actors. Potential conflicts of interest should
be examined in advance.
This special edition has highlighted the diversity in the types
and sources of financial and human resources available to
international organisations, and how this diversity relates to
variation in other areas, notably administrative processes in
these organisations, their governance, and more generally,
the organisations’ability to fulfil their mandates. Many of
the papers show a trend towards ever more diversity even
within existing organisations, driven by a shift from manda-
tory towards voluntary funding, and by a proliferation of
special purpose trust funds, in particular since the turn of
the century. This process is embedded in a broader change
of the international system with increasing numbers of (par-
tially competing) organisations. This proliferation of organi-
sations provides multiple options for funders willing to
support any specific cause, as well as new choices for
potential beneficiaries. The papers of this special edition
equally show that these developments may have dramatic
consequences for the future of the multilateral system as a
whole (Goetz and Patz, 2017).
However, a sceptical reader may still be left with a few
questions on the extent to which variation in resourcing –
and especially the substantial changes with respect to the
composition of funding observed in recent years –really mat-
ter in this respect. First, do these changes in resourcing really
cause substantial developments such as changes in the power
balance between different actors involved in the organisa-
tions? Or do we rather face an issue of reverse causality with
changes in the power balance affecting the types and sources
of financial and human resources? Or do both just happen in
parallel, jointly driven by a general change in preferences of
the actors involved? To establish the role of resourcing, a dis-
cussion of causality appears necessary here.
Second, besides these doubts about causality, the reader
may wonder about whether the effects involved are really
Global Policy (2017) 8:Suppl.5 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12471 ©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 8 . Supplement 5 . August 2017 113
Special Issue Conclusion
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