Budget Discipline at the U.N.? Not So Fast

"...Too much of the U.N. regular budget is wasteful or dedicated to duplicative or low-priority activities of dubious merit. For instance:

• There is an additional $27.7 million for UN human rights activities, most of which is dedicated to funding the activities of the Human Rights Council. The Council, however, (1) includes human rights abusers like China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia among its membership, (2) has condemned neither those countries nor Russia, Zimbabwe, or many other repressive governments for human rights abuses, and (3) was dismissed as a hypocritical 'cesspool of political bias' by Ambassador Nikki Haley. The U.S. withdrew last year, but American taxpayers will be charged even more for the work of that 'cesspool' after the budget adjustment...

The majority of U.N. member states pay a minuscule share of the expenses of the U.N. The U.S. will pay $639 million (22 percent of the recently adjusted UN regular budget) in 2019 - more than 178 other U.N. member states combined and 22,000 times more than the 30 least-assessed countries, which will pay only $29,058 each. In fact, the 129 lowest-assessed countries – that's two-thirds of all U.N. member states, the number necessary to adopt a new budget – will pay 1.633 percent of the regular budget combined..."