JAKARTA - Indonesia has fulfilled its obligations to contribute, dues, in full to the United Nations (UN), said the Spokesperson for the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yvonne Mewengkang.
This is related to the financial situation of the UN as explained by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his letter to all member states.
Yvonne explained, the UN Secretary-General on "January 28 sent a letter to all member states regarding the current financial situation of the UN."
"From Indonesia, we have carried out our obligations. We have paid our full contribution to the UN," Yvonne told reporters at the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tuesday (3/4).
"We have coordinated with the Director General of Multilateral Cooperation. Indonesia's position is more on encouraging countries to fulfill their obligations, their contributions," he continued.
Yvonne added, "the topic of this financial situation is indeed discussed at the UN, especially in Committee 5, there is a separate agenda."
Previously, the United Nations said last Friday that it would face financial collapse and run out of money in July if member states, especially the United States, did not pay their annual dues, which amounted to billions of US dollars, quoted from The New York Times.
Senior U.N. officials say that if cash runs out, the agency will be forced to shut down its headquarters in New York, U.S.A. in August. This will have an impact on the Security Council meetings and General Assembly sessions held there, up to closing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The UN Secretary-General in his letter sent to the ambassadors of 196 member countries warned of "an imminent financial collapse," saying the organization's financial difficulties this time are different from previous periods.
"The crisis is deepening, threatening the implementation of programs and risking financial collapse," wrote Secretary-General Guterres.
"And the situation will get worse in the near future. I cannot overstate the urgency of the situation we are facing now," he said.
On December 30, the General Assembly approved the 2026 UN budget of 3.45 billion US dollars, which includes the three main pillars of the organization's work: peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights.
The annual dues of the UN are mandatory and are determined based on a country's gross domestic product, and member states can be stripped of their voting rights in the UN for not paying.
The United Nations' financial problems are largely rooted in two problems: a liquidity crisis caused by member states not paying their dues or paying late, and the financial rules, dating back to 1945, which state that if the organization fails to spend the budget in full, even if it is due to a lack of payments from member states, the organization must return the money to the countries.
Secretary-General Guterres said in his letter that the rules essentially put the United Nations on a path to ruin, urging member states to pay their dues in full and to revise the rules.
"This makes the organization vulnerable to structural financial risks and forces a difficult choice: Member States must agree to revise our financial rules - or accept the real prospect of the financial collapse of our organization," the UN Secretary-General wrote.
Meanwhile, UN spokesman Farhan Haq called on countries to immediately pay their obligations, warning that this situation had never been faced before.
"If it concerns payment, now or not at all," he explained.
"We do not have enough cash and liquidity reserves to continue to function, as we have done in previous years. And this is something that the secretary-general has warned of more and more each year," Haq said.
He said that if the UN closed in July, humanitarian work around the world would also be affected and the work of civilian staff would be hampered.
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