General Assembly adopts US $2.17 billion peacekeeping budget

The UN General Assembly approved on Thursday a budget of some US $2.17 billion for the world body's 11 active peacekeeping missions for the next 12 months, UN News reported. It said that the 191-member governing assembly adopted a resolution covering peacekeeping finances for 2003-2004, "including some $70.29 million for the maintenance of a peacekeeping support account, and some $21.51 million for the UN Logistics Base in Brindisi, Italy". Compared with the appropriation of some $2.6 billion for the current period, it said, the new budget represented a $430-million reduction, "mostly due to the closing of the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the downsizing of the organisation's operations in Kosovo, Timor-Leste, Sierra Leone and Lebanon". In Africa, the UN has closed its peacekeeping missions in Angola, Central African Republic, Liberia and Rwanda. However, it still maintains missions in Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Sierra Leone and Western Sahara. The UN has strategic deployment stocks, a concept introduced in 2002 to enhance the UN's rapid deployment capacity, at its logistics base in Brindisi, Italy. UN News reported that the assembly extended to 30 June 2004 the validity period of previously-approved resources of some $141.55 million". UN News said, "Creation of the stocks will allow the Organization to deploy one complex mission per year. It also involves expansion of the role of the Logistics Base."