Current Affair 1:

All 193 members of the United Nations are required to make payments to certain parts of the organization as a condition of membership.

Member state funding for the UN system is the backbone of UN work and is primarily channeled through two main sources.

1. First, membership fees are obligatory payments made by states to fund the regular budget of the UN that is supposed to cover the organization’s core activities, such as expenditure for headquarters personnel, conferences and UN missions. These fees are also called “assessed” contributions as they are calculated based on a multilaterally determined Scale of Assessments.

The amount each member must pay, known as its assessed contribution, varies widely and is determined by a complex formula that factors in gross national income and population.

 

1. Second, “voluntary” contributions are resources that member states provide on a discretionary basis, often as ‘earmarked’ resources for predefined purposes, such as particular lines of work or specific projects.

Overall, the UN system heavily relies on voluntary contributions made at the discretion of individual member states, while assessed contributions cover a relatively small part of most UN budgets.

If you see the latest contribution from India (in US$):

The UN's regular and peacekeeping budgets are approved by the UN General Assembly.

UN funding from non-state actors remains relatively small but growing, especially from the private sector.

The United States is the largest contributor by volume. China has emerged as a significant UN contributor and is now among the five top Member State contributors.

Moreover, a number of UN entities with important roles in the fields of sustainable development and humanitarian affairs, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP), do not receive any assessed contribution and rely entirely on voluntary funding.

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