- and the Committee was US$2,467,754 from 2016 to March 2018, almost equal to the cumulated amount approved from 2008 to 2015 at US$2,487,043. Thus, in the last two years, the Committee had been able to approve as much as the previous eight years. Given this context, the Secretariat was requesting that the Assembly take a strategic decision because it was clear that the Secretariat's current capacity did not allow it to go beyond this basic administrative task, thereby impeding this mechanism from becoming a true operational arm of the Convention. The Secretariat was currently composed of eight professional and four general fixed-term staff. This meant a 20 per cent decrease since 2010, which reflected the house-wide situation of UNESCO in the context of the financial crisis since 2011. However, during the same period, the number of States Parties to the Convention had increased by more than 30 per cent, from 133 to 177 States Parties. Consequently, the obligations in terms of core statutory processes, preparing statutory meetings and drafting documents, supporting the Evaluation Body, treating nominations, NGO requests for accreditation, the review and follow-up of periodic reporting, let alone other functions such as the capacity-building programme, were becoming increasingly demanding. Of course, the numbers increased as the States Parties increased. Nowadays, the Secretariat had no other solution than to turn to temporary assistance to cover many of these functions. With regard to International Assistance, the roles and responsibilities were divided among several staff, including both fixed and temporary positions over and above their primary responsibilities. Again, apart from administrative tasks, such as registering requests and preparing correspondence, the Secretariat also performed a number of tasks to assist submitting States, for example, advising States about the design of projects, and accompanying them in preparing requests and responding to criteria. Preparing the working documents and background information for the Bureau and the Committee also took up a considerable amount of time, particularly as there were more requests submitted to the Bureau than in the past. While the tasks were voluminous, it was currently not possible to dedicate a specific team to the purpose of implementing this International Assistance mechanism. Hence the new budget line 1.1 in the draft plan to cover the biennial costs of three new extrabudgetary fixed-term posts: one P-3, one P-2 and one G-5 to form a team dedicated to fully activating the International Assistance mechanism and to effectively monitoring and evaluating its implementation, which would also ensure the stability and continuity of the results. Of course, the funding of these posts would continue to be subject to approval at each General Assembly. Thus, this new budget line would mean 8.2 per cent of the total estimated budget for the current biennium. To absorb this new percentage, slight decreases were proposed under certain budget lines without risking any of their objectives.
- 214. Thus, considering this new scenario, the Secretary explained that with the team in place, the objective of the Secretariat would be to retrieve an optimal level with the total approved budget for a biennium equal to the assessed contributions received. At the same time, the expenditure levels would match that same amount. In other words, the ideal situation would be to clear the accumulated amount in the Fund so as to spend what comes into the Fund as it is received. The Secretary displayed a graph on the screen that depicted a very conservative scenario based on a 40 per cent increase, and an increase of 40 per cent over the next two biennia. With that level maintained, it would still take until the 44 C/5, i.e. twelve years from now, to get to a maximum level of expenditure, that is, spending the full amount that enters the Fund. Once the budget would be stabilized at this level, if that was the case, covering the cost of the fixed-term posts would represent around 14 per cent of the overall budget of the Fund. The Secretary then turned to the other parts of the proposed spending plan. Budget line 1 on International Assistance would again be assigned with the majority of the allocation of the Fund, as had been the case since the beginning. At this stage, it would equal 52.55 per cent of the Fund, with a slight decrease of 6.45 per cent in relation to the current plan dedicated to covering part of the newly created budget line 1.1. Budget line 2 on preparatory and technical assistance would decrease by 1.5 per cent, meaning from 5.5 per cent to 4 per cent. Once again, this slight difference would be used to cover the creation of these posts and, in fact, should work to improve the low utilization of these mechanisms. Budget line 3 on ' other functions of the Committee ' would be maintained at 20 per cent of the