GA/AB/4034

Also Approves Budgets for 4 Political Missions, Text on Cross-Cutting Issues, Including Near $60 Million Supplemental Payment to Troop-Contributors

The Fifth Committee today concluded its second resumed substantive session by recommending financial arrangements for 14 United Nations peacekeeping operations, which, once endorsed by the General Assembly, would total slightly more than $7 billion.

Continuing to perform its important duties as what Chairman Michel Tommo Monthe (Cameroon) referred to as, effectively, “the United Nations Ways and Means Committee,” the key budgetary body also forwarded other decisions to the Assembly for action, including financing for four political missions, a revised rest and recuperation cycle for staff at duty stations where “danger pay” applied, and a one-time supplemental payment of nearly $60 million over the next year to troop contributing countries.

While approving the peacekeeping budgets through 14 separate provisional draft resolutions that would be updated and reissued with precise figures prior to final action by the Assembly, the Committee took note of a document forwarded by the Secretary-General outlining the resources to be approved for each mission through 30 June 2012, including the prorated shares of the peacekeeping support account and of the United Nations Logistics base in Brindisi, Italy (document A/C/5/66/17).

The note sets out the appropriations as follows:

Mission: Total Appropriation

MINURSO ( Mission for Referendum in Western Sahara) $60.80 million

MINUSTAH (Stabilization Mission in Haiti) $676.70 million

MONUSCO (Organization Stabilization Mission in Democratic Republic of the Congo) $1.40 billion

UNAMID (Hybrid Operation in Darfur) $1.51 billion

UNDOF (Disengagement Observer Force) $47.99 million

UNFICYP (Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus) $56.98 million

UNIFIL (Interim Force in Lebanon) $546.9 million

UNISFA (United Nations Interim Security Force in Abyei) $269.2 million

UNMIK ( Mission in Kosovo) $49.02 million

UNMIL ( Mission in Liberia) $518.09 million

UNMISS (United Nations Mission in South Sudan) $876.16 million

UNMIT (United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste) $162.21 million

UNOCI (United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire) $600.15 million

UNSOA (United Nations Support Office for the African Union Mission in Somalia) $455.98 million

All the texts were approved by consensus except the draft setting out the provisional budgetary arrangements for UNIFIL. Israel’s delegation requested two separate recorded votes — on four specific paragraphs and on the resolution as a whole. Malfunctioning equipment in the meeting room forced the Committee to hold a “roll call vote” on references to the 1996 incident in the Southern Lebanese village of Qana during which Israeli Defense Force (IDF) artillery fire hit a UNIFIL compound (document A/C.5/66/L.35).

The language — in preambular paragraph 4, and existing operative paragraphs 4, 5 and 14 of the text — including a call for Israel to pay some $1.1 million dollars for damages caused during the incident, was retained by a roll call vote of 91 in favour to 3 against (Canada, Israel, United States), with 48 abstentions.