WASHINGTON - A senior UN official on Thursday urged Washington to honor its financial obligations to the beleaguered world body, saying an underfunded United Nations could not effectively carry out its global mission.
Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, noted at a congressional hearing that many US lawmakers have responded to a recent scandals enveloping the organization by calling for Washington to suspend payment of UN dues, but said such a move would be wrongheaded.
"While there is in some quarters an understandable temptation to respond to UN failures by threatening to cut peacekeeping or other contributions, I would argue that what is really needed, for a long-term, sustainable solution, is for the United States and fellow member states to agree what they want the UN to do, then fund it properly to allow the UN to do the task well," he told a hearing of the House of Representatives' International Affairs Committee.
Malloch Brown said some people believed the organization is awash in cash. He added: "From where I sit, the United Nations is currently stretched too thin -- in both material and human resources -- to be able to do the job that people and governments around the world want it to do, and have a right to expect it to do."
Last month, the Senate voted to reduce US funding for UN peacekeeping operations from 27.1 percent to 25 percent, while the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that a fuller reexamination of America's UN contributions could be carried out in the future.
05/19/2005 18:33 GMT