United Nations: After nearly a decade of no growth in the United Nations budget, Secretary General Kofi Annan has recommended a 0.5 per cent growth in the organisation's budget for the 2004-2005 biennium, including small extra expenditures on programmes for Africa, crime prevention and Human Rights observance.

"The budget embodies both our great hopes for the organisation and our carefully considered decisions of what to do in a world of finite and limited resources," he told the General Assembly's Administrative and Budgetary Committee while introducing the $ 3.058 billion budget on October 29.

Cautioning that the security of UN mission staff would require more funds than presently requested, Annan said the results-based budget reflects a major effort to align the activities of the organisation with priorities agreed on at the Millennium Summit of 2000 and major world conferences.

"The budget allocates additional resources for financing for development and the special needs of Africa. There are also modest yet necessary increases for drug control, crime prevention and Human Rights," he said.

Of the 50,000 projects in the budget, Annan recommended discontinuing 900, "the first real effort of this kind", knowing "how difficult it is to end UN activities once they have started."

PTI