The Business of Making Ends Meet

Abstract

The finances of the United Nations have always been under regular official and popular scrutiny. The tendency has been to judge them in terms of the habits of a skilled but unreformed bankrupt. The recurrent theme in periodic announcements is that the world organization is threatened by bankruptcy, is operating in the red or is switching money between budget accounts to keep itself afloat. In some senses, these terms are not unrealistic. They can be easily associated with the everyday hazards of most people who have to deal with stern bank managers. This constant financial plight of the UN receives little sympathy. To grasp some idea of the complexity of the UN’s budgetary systems requires delving into the reports from a myriad of committees, which set figures first and then adjust them later. Finally, after considerable debate, agreement is reached. For the record, there follows a so-called final auditing. These procedures and the figures they produce do not evoke as much popular interest as, say, peacekeeping operations or humanitarian intervention. But those latter activities could hardly take place without the financial calculations behind them. Furthermore, the way these calculations are arrived at and tracing the flow of UN money through the veins of the complicated system is a revealing way of exposing and exploring how the system works.