Introduction

Abstract

Any exploration behind the facts and figures of the financing of the United Nations system reveals more about this complex organization than the documented statistics by themselves might suggest. For a start, they can be deceptive in more senses than one. Almost four decades ago, David Singer lamented the lack of detailed and thorough accounts of budgetary questions of the League of Nations, the UN, and their affiliated agencies. He was a forerunner in just such missing studies and wrote: ‘It is unfortunate that this is so’. He added the wry thought: ‘Not that the fate of the world rides on the United Nations budget, or that matters of peace and war will be determined by the dollars and cents of the Secretary-General’s estimates’.¹ How the member states, which number 185 today, help the UN’s chief administrator, the secretary-general, through formal and informal meetings and, more often than not, sheer politicking, to reach these estimates is one story that an examination of the UN’s finances helps reveal. How the variety of the UN’s different budgets arrive at their final public forms is almost always yet another tale.