The UN regular budget is financed through compulsory contributions from the member states, based on an allocation formula adopted by the General Assembly (Article 17 of the Charter). This scale of assessments involves a complex methodology aimed at reflecting the payment capacity of member states. It is revised every three years.
The capacity to pay is calculated based on each country’s share of global gross national income (in US dollars) over a reference period (average of the last three and six years available). This gross calculation is adjusted by applying discounts for the developing and emerging countries (based on indebtedness and/or low per capita income), as well as minimum assessment rates (minimum rate of 0.001%) and maximum caps (0.01% for the least advanced countries and 22% for the maximum contribution). The UN scale is set for a period of three years and is negotiated during the final year of application of the current scale on the basis of a report by the Committee on Contributions (COC), a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly established by resolution 14 (I) of 1946 and made up of 18 members proposed by the regional groups who act as independent experts.
For the current scale, negotiated during the main part of the 67th session, the reference years used (2004 to 2010) were marked by a significant gap in the level of growth between the developed countries, which were affected by the crisis, and the emerging countries. The application of the existing methodology therefore resulted in a reduction in the contributions of the former and an increase in those of the latter.
The unchanged methodology resulted in a reduction in the contributions of France and the European countries: while the EU’s share in the previous scale of assessments amounted to 38.9% (i.e. substantially higher than its capacity to pay of 30% calculated based on its share of global GDP), it amounts to 34.9% for the period 2013-2015.
For France the contribution fell from 6.123% to 5.597%, i.e. a reduction of 8.7%.
The scale of contributions for the PKOs is derived from that of the regular budget. Based on the same economic data, its methodology, which has been stable since 2000, arranges the member states in groups from B to J, according to their per capita income. It recognizes the special responsibility of the 5 permanent members of the Security Council (P5), which are assigned to group A; their financial contribution covers the discounts granted to the other member states, which range from 7.5% for group C to 90% for group J.
The unique methodology of the PKO scale places a particularly heavy burden on the P5 members since the growth of the non-permanent emerging countries results in a larger discount, which the P5 members must absorb.
In the next scale, France’s contribution will therefore fall slightly in absolute terms, from 7.55% to 7.21% of the scale.
However, France is now the third largest contributor to the PKOs, after the United States (28.4%), and Japan (10.83%) but ahead of Germany (7.14%), the United Kingdom (6.68%) and China (6.64%).
Website of the Committee on Contributions: http://www.un.org/en/ga/contributions/