Funding the UN*

Baumann, Max-Otto; Weinlich, Silke

doi:10.4324/9780429197680-14

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Likewise, parallel reforms in the United Nations system for development cooperation have not been transformational, mostly because of governments' incoherent signals in the governing bodies and funding practices that impede integrated approaches (for example, refs. [19][20][21] ). As for environmental policy, the United Nations Environment Programme, mandated to catalyse international action and cooperation, has not been able to expand its leadership after the adoption of the SDGs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals

et al. 2022

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In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We present here condensed evidence from an analysis of over 3,000 scientific studies on the Sustainable Development Goals published between 2016 and April 2021. Our findings suggests that the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about sustainable development. More profound normative and institutional impact, from legislative action to changing resource allocation, remains rare. We conclude that the scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals thus far.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals

et al. 2022

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“…These adverse effects include the distortion of programme priorities, loss of legitimacy and insufficient cost recovery of earmarked programmes (UN, 2017). Qualitative evidence from case studies undergirds these concerns, showing for select IOs that earmarked funding distorts spending priorities, increases administrative costs and reinforces conflicts between organisational entities (Baumann et al, 2019; Reinsberg, 2023; Schmid et al, 2021). Following the initiative of the UN Secretary‐General, donor governments committed (in the so‐called Funding Compact) to reduce the share of (strictly) earmarked funding if UN agencies could demonstrate reforms towards financial transparency, system‐level cooperation and a clearer focus on results.…”

Section: Earmarking and The Performance Of International Organisationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While enhanced donor control may not necessarily undermine IO performance, a rich body of qualitative work argues that it does (Baumann et al, 2019; Reinsberg, 2016; Schmid et al, 2021; Staeger, 2023). However, these studies only ever look at specific types of IOs.…”

Section: Literature Review and Theoretical Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, these studies only ever look at specific types of IOs. Some cover individual UN agencies (Reinsberg, 2023; Schmid et al, 2021) and the UN system as a whole (Baumann et al, 2019), others capture the World Bank (Reinsberg, 2016), while others study regional organisations (Engel & Mattheis, 2020). Moreover, previous studies focus on distinct earmarked funding instruments such as multi‐donor trust funds in fragile states, rather than earmarked funding as a whole (Barakat, 2009; Barakat et al, 2012; Muchadenyika, 2016).…”

Section: Literature Review and Theoretical Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Larger organisations may be better able to exploit economies of scale and be able to afford fundraising departments. More staff under a given budget may matter, too, especially because many earmarked funding agreements come about locally between field staff and donor embassies (Baumann et al, 2019). We collect these pieces of information from publicly available websites and IO reports and take the logarithm to account for diminishing marginal utility.…”

Section: Control Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does earmarked funding affect the performance of international organisations?

Reinsberg,

Siauwijaya

2023

Global Policy

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What determines the performance of international organisations (IOs)? We argue that funding structures remain an overlooked driver of IO performance. Over the past decades, donor governments have provided an increasing share of their contributions to IOs in the form of earmarked resources, which provide them with the opportunity to restrict the use of funding to specific themes, sectors, regions, countries or projects. This development has raised concerns about the ability of IOs to perform their duties, given that earmarked funds distort programme priorities away from recipient need and increase transaction costs for IO staff. Beyond qualitative evidence from case studies, concerns about the performance‐related effects of earmarking remain untested in large‐N analysis. Drawing on 64 performance assessments of 32 IOs from 2009 to 2021, undertaken by the Multilateral Organisation Performance Assessment Network, we employ latent factor analysis to extract measures of process performance—the extent to which IOs have rules, procedures and routines in place to plan strategically, manage operations efficiently, liaise with partners effectively, monitor results and promote institutional learning—and outcome performance—the extent to which IOs achieve results that are relevant, efficient and sustainable. Using multivariate regressions, we find that earmarked funding is negatively related to process performance. Our result is robust to alternative model specifications and an instrumental variable design that helps mitigate concerns about endogeneity. These results have important implications for our understanding of IO performance and policy implications for donors of IOs.

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Liberale Weltordnung (WO)

Simonis

2022

Global Governance

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Funding the UN*

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals

Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals

Does earmarked funding affect the performance of international organisations?

Liberale Weltordnung (WO)

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