1. Stresses that regular resources, inter alia, because of their untied nature, are the bedrock of the operational activities of UNICEF and, in this regard, notes with serious concern the stagnation of regular resources available to UNICEF;
2. Requests that all donors strive to increase contributions to regular resources and requests the Executive Director to hold consultations to encourage donors to increase the proportion of contributions to regular resources;
3. Endorses the objectives that other resources support the medium-term strategic plan (MTSP) priorities and that regular resources should not subsidize the support costs for other resources programmes, and encourages UNICEF to apply procedures that reduce transaction costs for other resources programmes;
4. Endorses the aim of eliminating, in the medium term, the subsidy of support costs for other resources programmes by regular resources;
5. Calls on those donors contributing to other resources to consider directing these
contributions to thematic areas1;
6. Calls further on all donors to simplify their administrative and reporting requirements to significantly reduce the administrative costs of their contributions to other resources;
7. Decides to apply, as an interim measure, the methodology as described in paragraph 13 of document E/ICEF/2003/AB/L.1 and in its annex II. The methodology will be reviewed by the Executive Board in light of the harmonization discussion among the United Nations agencies;
8. Authorizes the Executive Director to apply the following rates2 to all new agreements to be signed after Executive Board approval of the revised policy on an interim basis:
(a) 5 per cent for all resources raised from the private sector in the programme countries;
(b) For other private sector resources, 5 per cent for thematic contributions and 7 per cent for non-thematic contributions;
(c) For other contributions to thematic areas, 8 per cent, and an additional reduction of 1 per cent for 90 per cent up-front payments;
(d) For non-thematic contributions, 12 per cent and additional reductions of 1 per cent for 90 per cent up-front payment, 1 per cent for contributions over $500,000, 2 per cent for contributions over $2 million, 3 per cent for contributions over $10 million, and, as a transitional arrangement through 2004, 4 per cent for contributions over $40 million;
9. Recognizes that the rates approved above constitute a step towards the reduction of the subsidy of the support costs of other resources programmes by regular resources;
10. Requests the Executive Director to bring the issue of the recovery policy to the attention of the working group on harmonization and simplification of the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) with a view to harmonizing the methodology used by the UNDG members in devising their recovery policies;
11. Requests the Executive Director to report to the Executive Board on the experiences of the recovery policy, especially on actual cost recovery achieved and recovery rates applied to projects during this period, on its effects on the regular resources, as well as on the harmonization efforts undertaken, and to submit proposals for further steps towards the elimination of any remaining subsidy of support costs of other resources programmes by regular resources at the second regular session of the Executive Board in 2005 for a review of this interim policy.
1 The thematic areas are the five MTSP priority areas (immunization plus, girls’ education, child protection, HIV/AIDS, early childhood development) and humanitarian assistance.
2 All incentive reductions are applicable to annual contributions.
Annual session 5 June 2003
Khmer
