ANNEX C
FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION
In the last few years UNHCR has grown like Topsy. In two years its overall expenditure on assistance (general and special programmes) has increased nearly four-fold. This dramatic growth can best be illustrated by the following table:
Refugees in
millions
(excluding displaced persons)
Staff
(excluding
L series
consultants)
General Programme $ million
Special Progra-
mmes
Total Expenditure $ million
1951 1.250,000
*
33
·.3
.3
1960 1.237,200
300
10.6
5.4
16
1970 2.460,000
325
5.88
6.7
12.58
1978 4.600,000
638-771+
40.48
94.1
134.58
1980 6.700,000
1,000
280.00
320
500 approx.
*
European only
+ 1 Jan-31 December 1978
The General Programme covers ongoing refugee problems of long standing. The special programmes deal with new situations, and are financed by ad hoc appeals. When a "new" situation becomes more permanent it is transferred to the General Programme, e.g. South East Asia in 1978. Both programmes are financed by voluntary contributions mainly from some 15 traditional Western donors plus NGOS. The UN regular (assessed) budget pays for headquarters-based staff dealing with UNHCR's original protection work (some $11 million in 1979).
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Given UNHCR's unprecedented expansion it now has the highest budget of any humanitarian organisation donor governments are naturally taking a much closer interest in the way it spends its money and runs its affairs. A balance has to be struck between the flexibility required for UNHCR to respond immediately to refugee crises and the need for donor governments to ensure that their contributions are spent effectively. Ideas such as a Budget and Finance Commmittee or a second regular Executive Committee in March (there used to be two such meetings) have been put forward but they all involve an increase in bureaucracy, an encroachment on the High Commissioner's area of discretion and a shackling of his room for manoeuvre. He thus prefers the kind of continuing dialogue which representatives of some donor missions have this year been having with senior members of his staff. The latter have responded positively to the much greater need for information.
There are, however, some real problems which the donors have yet to take up with UNHCR: morale is not good and the staff at headquarters are often not motivated; personnel policies (recruitment, training,
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