By Xinhua
United Nations : The UN General Assembly approved a two-year UN budget of $4.17 billion despite objection from the US.
The budget, proposed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, was approved by a vote of 142 to one Saturday.
Ban welcomed the approval and also expressed his regret that the budget was not adopted by consensus, marking a break with tradition after 20 years, the UN spokesman’s office said in a statement.
The Secretary-General urged all member states to return to consensus decision-making and to demonstrate a greater sense of flexibility and compromise, beyond individual national interests and in common cause of multilateralism for the good of humankind.
The US negative vote was due to a special fund of $6.7 million in the budget for a follow-up to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism.
The US and Israel delegations withdrew from the third World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, protesting criticism of Israel during the conference for alleged racist acts.
Developing countries insisted that the $6.7 million be funded from the regular UN budget rather than by voluntary contributions.
Discussions on the budgets lasted for weeks due to the US objections. Ban’s proposed budget was $4.2 billion, the amount that represents real growth of $23 million, or half a percentage point, over the previous budget period of 2006 and 2007.
“That is not much, considering the demands upon us,” Ban said earlier, citing “difficult diplomatic and security challenges in Lebanon, Somalia, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo” and “longer term challenges” of fighting poverty, climate change and HIV/AIDS as well as protecting human rights.
“Never has the world so needed a strong UN. Yet never have our resources been stretched so thin,” he said.
Separately, the assembly also approved $1.28 billion to fund peacekeeping troops of UN-African Union for Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region until next June 30.
Another $182.44 million has been approved for a UN force to be deployed in Chad and the Central African Republic.
The US is the world body’s largest contributor, covering around 22 percent of the regular budget.
The UN receives its annual funding from its 192 member states, which make contributions in accordance with their respective assessed ability.