ABSTRACT
UN member states pay mandatory assessed contributions towards the regular budget, towards peacekeeping operations, to international tribunals, and to the Capital Master Plan (which manages renovation works at UN headquarters in New York, USA). Ability to pay assessed contributions to the regular budget is determined by a 10-year average of national gross domestic product figures, adjusted to take into account high levels of foreign debt or very low per caput income (the minimum assessment is 0.001% of the budget). In December 2016 the General Assembly endorsed a proposal to transform, on a trial basis from 2020, the UN planning and budget cycle from a biennial to an annual time period. In 1997 a US business executive, Ted Turner, announced a donation of US $1,000m. to finance UN humanitarian and environmental causes until 2014 (later extended to 2024).
