Permanent Council of the OAS

CP/RES. 983 (1797/11)

AMENDMENT OF RESOLUTION CP/RES. 965 (1733/09) ON THE COSTING PROCESS FOR RESOLUTIONS TO BE REFERRED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOR CONSIDERATION

(Approved at the meeting held on March 30, 2011)

THE PERMANENT COUNCIL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES,

HAVING SEEN document CP/CAAP-3098/11 rev. 3 entitled “Costing Process for Resolutions,” adopted by the Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs (CAAP), which is attached hereto as Appendix I;

CONSIDERING:

That Article 41 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly states that “in adopting any resolution providing for a project or activity that entails expenditure by the Organization, the General Assembly shall take into account financial estimates, which the General Secretariat shall prepare in advance, on the impact of such projects or activities on the budgetary calculations of the Organization, as well as prior statements by the Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Affairs of the Permanent Council or, as the case may be, by the General Committee of the General Assembly on such financial implications;”

That on December 16, 2009 the Permanent Council adopted resolution CP/RES. 965 (1733-1709) establishing the use of templates for resolutions to be referred to the General Assembly for consideration in order to facilitate implementation of Article 41 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly;

That, on April 28, 2010, the Permanent Council adopted resolution CP/RES. 971 (1751/10) for the CAAP to evaluate the application of resolution CP/RES. 965 (1733/09) and propose to the Permanent Council any modifications that are necessary; and

That, in accordance with the provisions of resolution CP/RES. 971 (1751/10), the CAAP has adopted the “Costing Process for Resolutions” (Appendix I) and that this document, in turn, has an Appendix I-A, which consists of the Costing Form that describes the information to be included with each draft resolution that is to be referred to the General Assembly for consideration and financed by the Program-Budget of the Organization,

RESOLVES:

1. To instruct the Permanent Council committees to include in draft resolutions to be referred to the General Assembly for consideration information on their cost, following the process of costing resolutions provided for in Appendix I hereto.

2. To request that CIDI and other bodies, specialized agencies and entities, include, in draft resolutions that are to be referred to the General Assembly for consideration and financed by the Program-Budget of the Organization, information on their cost as outlined in Appendix I hereto.

3. To urge the committees of the Permanent Council, and recommend to the Inter-American Council for Integral Development and other bodies whose draft resolutions require OAS funding and are to be submitted to the General Assembly for consideration, that they include the following text in said draft resolutions:

“Execution of the activities envisaged in this resolution will be subject to the availability of financial resources in the program-budget of the Organization and other resources.”

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The process for estimating the costs associated with resolutions sets out how to implement the procedure that is proposed in replacement of the templates approved by resolution 965. The process of presentation, discussion, and approval of draft resolutions will continue its usual course, without delays or conditions arising from the costing process, while the latter will follow a separate, complementary course. To begin with, the SAF, in consultation with the relevant technical areas and the delegation that has presented the draft resolution, will prepare the new appendix, including the estimated costs, implementation timetable, and likely sources of financing; that is, the regular fund or specific funds. The CAAP will compile both the cost of the currently executed mandates arising from past approved resolutions and the cost of the mandates arising from the new proposed resolutions, in order to determine the budget ceiling needs and prepare a budget ceiling proposal for the General Assembly. The incremental costs will be brought to the attention of the General Assembly at its regular sessions and will then serve as an input for the process of discussion and preparation of the draft Program-Budget of the Organization.