The budget of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) was released on Tuesday as an official document of the General Assembly.
According to the report, UNFICYP budget for the period from 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016 amounts to $54,374,700 and provides for the deployment of 860 military contingent personnel, 69 United Nations police officers, 33 international staff and 117 national staff.
The proposed budget of $54,374,700 for the 2015/16 period is decreased by $3,629,800, or 6.3 per cent, from the apportionment of $58,004,500 for the 2014/15 period.
The variance is attributable mainly to: (a) lower requirements for international staff salaries resulting from the lower post adjustment multiplier for Cyprus, and the nationalization of four Field Service posts; and (b) lower requirements for military and police personnel as well as facilities and infrastructure owing to the application of the United Nations operational exchange rate between the euro and the United States dollar.
The UN Secretary General says in the report that UNFICYP “will continue to ensure the implementation of its mandate, which is to maintain the stability of the buffer zone and to facilitate a return to normal conditions. It will also continue to provide substantive, administrative and logistical support to the Secretary-General’s good offices mission in the ongoing political negotiations for a Cyprus settlement”.
It adds that the total resource requirements for the UNFICYP for the financial period from 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016 have been linked to the mission’s objective through a number of results-based frameworks, organized according to components (political and civil affairs, military, United Nations police and support).
UNFICYP, one of the longest serving UN peace-keeping forces, arrived in Cyprus in March 1964, after intercommunal strife broke out between the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot communities on the island.
CNA/AZ/KD/MM/2015
ENDS, CYPRUS NEWS AGENCY