On Tuesday, December 16, the Starling Institute hosted a virtual discussion (recording below) on “The Helms-Biden Playbook: Lessons from a Previous Impasse in the UN budget and U.S.-UN Relations”. We discussed the historical context of the Helms-Biden deal and the implications for today’s crisis. The panel, moderated by Starling Institute CEO, Minh-Thu Pham, included:
Robert C. Orr, Professor, UMD School of Public Policy; Former Deputy to the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, 1996 - 2001
Mark P. Lagon, Chief Policy Officer, Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; Senior Staff on the Helms-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1999-2001
Suzanne Nossel, Senior Advisor, Starling Institute; Former Deputy to the Ambassador for UN Management and Reform at the U.S. Mission to the UN, 1999-2001 & the lead negotiator of the agreement underpinning Helms-Biden
Brett D. Schaefer, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Former Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation
Photo Credit: The Jesse Helms Center Foundation
Eighty years after its founding, the United Nations today faces a financial crisis as Member States fail to pay their dues in full and on time. In particular, the United States has thus far withheld all funding to the UN regular budget and sharply reduced its voluntary contributions to the UN’s funds and programs, leaving a critical 22 percent hole in the UN regular budget and a crisis across the UN system. Meanwhile the Chinese Government paid their assessment in October, giving the UN little time to spend it before the remainder returns to Beijing at year’s end; furthermore the UN’s second largest contributor to the regular budget has traditionally also offered relatively paltry voluntary contributions to the rest of the UN system.
Members of the U.S. Congress have often become frustrated with the relative levels of U.S. contributions to the UN’s budget, and questioned the UN’s relevance to American interests. In the 1990s, Republican politicians, led by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), resisted releasing U.S. dues payments absent a recalculation of budget formulas and certain reforms to the institution. After more than a year of negotiations, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke reached an agreement with UN Member States to lower the U.S. contribution in the regular budget from 25 percent to 22 percent, where the U.S. assessment rate is today, and Senator Helms freed the first set of blocked funds in 2000.
The Starling Institute held this virtual discussion on reflections from the last major UN budget and arrears crisis and Helms-Biden negotiations and considered paths to addressing the UN’s current financial crisis and rebuilding the U.S. - UN relationship. We may be in a different moment, but there is an opportunity to learn from the past.