The Financial Crisis of UNESCO after 2011: Political Reactions and Organizational Consequences
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12459 |
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
The Financial Crisis of UNESCO after 2011:
Political Reactions and Organizational
Consequences
Klaus H€
ufner
Senior Research Fellow at the Global Policy Forum
Abstract
The present situation of UNESCO is unique in both, financial and legal terms. The United States with an assessment rate of 22
per cent to be contributed to the regular budget stopped paying its membership dues as of 2011 when the General Confer-
ence of UNESCO admitted Palestine as a Member State. But the United States decided to remain full member of the Organiza-
tion. Israel followed the same way. The impact of an increasing ‘debt mountain’over the years is obvious which led to a
serious reduction in staff and activities. No one dares to question the issue of membership. Other member states started pay-
ing their annual dues either late or not at all. Ad hoc attempts of organizational change dominate the running of UNESCO
without overcoming the existing fragmentation.
UNESCO and the United Nations system
With the founding of the United Nations after the Second
World War a broad range of specialized agencies has been
created. Together with the United Nations and its UN special
programmes and funds they form what we call the United
Nations system. Today, the UN system includes 17 special-
ized agencies which are brought into relationship with the
UN through agreements. UNESCO has been established on
the basis of the moral and intellectual solidarity of human-
kind. Serving as an ‘intellectual’agency of the UN it covers
an extremely broad range of activities related to education,
the natural sciences, the social sciences and humanities, cul-
ture, and communication. But UNESCO is not a non-govern-
mental organization run by academia; it is an international
intergovernmental organization controlled by member states
being responsible for setting the key strategic priorities and
providing the resources that are at the disposal for the work
of the organization.
Financing UNESCO
In the past and as is the case with most specialized agen-
cies, UNESCO received its major income from assessed,
mandatory membership contributions. In this case, member
states had to pay annually to the regular budgets which
were adopted by the UNESCO General Conference on a
biannual basis. This procedure is still applied although two
major trends can be observed. On the one hand, often the
policy of a real or even nominal zero growth of the regular
budget had to be applied on demand of the major contrib-
utors. On the other hand, the share of voluntary contribu-
tions related to the overall annual income of UNESCO
started to increase. Those voluntary contributions can be
given either as untied (core) or earmarked (non-core) contri-
butions. Whereas in the past, regular budgets were supple-
mented by voluntary contributions, more recently, voluntary,
earmarked contributions increased dramatically especially in
the field of humanitarian related operational activities (for
the broader trend and theoretical discussions, see in this
issue: Bergmann and Fuchs 2017; Ege and Bauer 2017;
Goetz and Patz 2017; Graham 2017; Michaelowa 2017; Reins-
berg 2017). This led to a continuing imbalance between
core and non-core funding. UNESCO as well as other spe-
cialized agencies are presently confronted with the problem
of linking their work programmes with the necessary
resource requirements in an optimal way. In addition,
UNESCO has to solve the issue of a permanent financial gap
of 22 per cent in the regular budget caused by the United
States.
The United States, UNESCO ... and Palestine
First of all, it must be underlined that the present situation
differs considerably from the situation in 1984 when the
United States left UNESCO as a member state after having
declared its withdrawal on 31 December 1983. At that time,
the United States accused UNESCO of having strongly politi-
cized all the issues especially in the communication sector,
of not adhering to the demands for a zero nominal growth
budget and of being ‘hostile to private institutions of free
society’. When the notice took effect one year later, on 31
December 1984, the United States had no financial
obligations vis-
a-vis the organization as from 1 January
1985 although the withdrawal took place within a biennial
budget.
©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2017) 8:Suppl.5 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12459
Global Policy Volume 8 . Supplement 5 . August 2017
96
Special Issue Article
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