Search: Home About Us Donate Where We Work ... Contact Us Mixed Outcome for Peacekeeping in Emergency Supplemental Bill Contact: Peter H. Gantz
ri@refugeesinternational.org or 202.828.0110 x221
President Bushâs FY05 Emergency War Supplemental request contained several important funding measures relating to peacekeeping: funding for UN peacekeeping and the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. A Congressional Conference Committee has delivered its final report, with mixed results for these two programs. Congress reduced the Presidentâs request for the Contributions to International Peacekeeping Account (CIPA) by $100 million to $680 million. After nearly denying funding to the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, Congress agreed to provide $7.7 million against a Presidential request of $17 million.
The irony of the decision to reduce funding for CIPA is that the Presidentâs original request derived from Congressional advice after the United States voted in the Security Council to authorize four new United Nations peacekeeping missions in Burundi, Cote dâIvoire, Haiti, and the Sudan. During the process of deliberating on the Supplemental, however, both the House and the Senate approved major cuts to the CIPA request. In the end, however, advocacy from humanitarian and peace and security organizations, led by Refugees International working through the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping, convinced conferees to provide $680 million for the CIPA, better than the $580 million provided in the House-passed version of the supplemental, and significantly more than the $440 million the Senate approved. | |
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