Introduction
The Rules of Procedure make several references to funding including the following points:
1 The funding for the Council comes from contributions of the Chinese government and international donors.
2 The Council will set up a core funding mechanism to finance activities that are unable to obtain financial support.
3 The Secretariat and the Secretariat Canadian Office will administer core funding funds that enter their respective accounts according to their respective financial regulations and rules.
4 The core funding funds will be audited annually by a third independent auditing agency.
5 The Council will actively seek contributions from organization who are interested in cooperation with the Council. The Council; will also make specific arrangements to ensure systematic, continuous financial and other support necessary for carrying out the Council's activities.
The foregoing references to "core funding" were explained in the following excerpt from the Project Implementation Plan for CCICED Phase III agreed to by China and Canada and made available to other donors:
Two types of funding are described below: core financing and dedicated financing. For the purposes of this document, core financing is defined as funding which supports the Council's core operations: its Annual General Meeting, Task Forces, Lead Experts and Secretariat; core financing is not tied to any specific purpose. Dedicated financing is defined as being provided to the Council for a specific purpose, for instance the funding of a particular TF.… Untied core funding will ensure that the Council has sufficient funds with which to plan its activities, as well as to ensure Task Forces operations.
There is no annual assessment or burden-sharing formula applied to Members of the Council. All contributions are voluntary.
As in the past, income forecasts are reported on a calendar year basis. They are reported in American dollars because that is the unit of account for the Council, even though many contributions are made in a variety of other currencies.
Contributions
To date, the following pledges have been made to CCICED Phase III.
• Chinese contribution over the five-year period will amount to RMB 10.0 million in cash for core funding, plus the provision of staff, facilities and local costs estimated at RMB 22.0 million.
• Canadian CIDA contribution will be Cdn$ 8.0 million for core funding over five years.
• Norwegian NORAD has pledged 10.0 million kroner for core funding over 5 years.
• Swedish SIDA has pledged 8.5 million kroner for core funding over 2 years.
• The total German contribution for phase III amounts to 2.0 million EURO, over 5 years out of which an average of 19% will be provided as a financial contribution toward the costs of "core operations" such as annual meetings and other activities as soon as the related bilateral agreement is signed.
• In the case of Japan, GISPRI pledged 19.9 million yen to support the Task Force on Promotion of Circular Economy and Cleaner Production and Ministry Of Environment, Japan has pledged 14.4 million yen to the TF on Urban Environmental Infrastructure Financing Mechanism (both of which have now completed their reports)
• The Netherlands Government pledged 600,000 Euro, of which 380,000 Euro supported the TF on Enterprises Development and the Environment. (which has now completed its report).
• Swiss SECO has pledged $992,000 during 2003 and 2004 to support the WTO-TF
• British DFID has pledged $938,000 over 3 years to support the ENRPT-TF
• WWF has pledged approximately $400,000 to support the River Basin Management TF
• Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has promised RMB 1,800,000 (about $220,000) to support Non-point Pollution TF
• Asian Development Bank has offered $85,000 to support activities not yet specified
• Shell Foundation has offered $70,000 to support activities not yet specified
Attached is a table entitled "CCICED 2004 Indicative Budget". It shows (by purpose and donor) the approximate value in US$ of all cash commitments that are expected during calendar year 2004. It also makes a distinction between core funding and dedicated funding. Page 2 gives details of China's in-kind contributions.
The financial support from all sources is of great importance to CCICED and much appreciated, as are the many in-kind contributions made, not only by China, but also by NGO's, institutions, many individual experts and. These are too numerous to mention here but are acknowledged in the Task Force Reports.
Expenses
There are currently ten Task Forces (TF) being financially supported by CCICED that are scheduled to report to the Council either this year or next year. They are listed on page 1 of the attached table.
In all, five Task Forces will present their findings this year: Agriculture and Rural Development, Integrated River Basin Management, Non-Point Pollution from Crop Production, Protected Areas Management, and WTO and the Environment.
The Energy TF that reported last year, had some expenses that were only cleared in 2004. ENR Pricing and Taxation, Circular Economy Strategy and Sustainable Taxation Task Forces are definitely scheduled to report in 2005 and two other Task Forces (possibly Regional Sustainable Development and Green Taxation) are likely to report in 2005 – but no final decision has yet been made on them.
At each Annual General Meeting during Phase III, it is planned that the Council will receive and discuss only 5 TF final reports. By dropping the requirement to hear many TF reports annually, the Council aims to optimize the time available for discussion of urgent issues. The other relevant factor in this Phase is the new rule that normally each TF will have two years to complete its work program. In a few cases however, the Bureau may decide task a TF to report in one year or to extend the mandate of an existing TF because it is best positioned to undertake new work that would meet a high priority need for China.
Each Task Force is normally budgeted at approximately US$300,000 annually. However, the latter figure may have to be adjusted in special cases
Although several key donors have not made firm five-year commitments to Phase III, we are hoping that CCICED will be able to support a five-year budget to finance approximately 45 years of Task Force activity.
Most other expenses are easier to estimate. The following annual costs which are forecast for this year should continue to be about the same in future years:
Council meetings (including travel costs) =$215,000
Headquarters Secretariat =$272,000
Canadian Secretariat =$200,000
Lead Experts =$268,000
1] *CIDA pledged CDN$ 8.0M over 5 years (or 5.3M US$ @1.5) - all for core funding
