Recognising the existence of
WA General Fund, as one of the oldest resolutions passed by this chamber and which has served as an essential charter of the World Assembly's fiscal affairs, establishing the WA General Fund along with an agency to maintain it in the form of the General Accounting Office;
Cognisant, however, that the spending of the hard-earned resources pooled from member nations in the General Fund inherently requires a level of oversight both to prevent the use of shared funds even when a project can be paid for without such use, and the misuse of funds allocated to particular projects;
Noting that since the creation of the General Fund, many resolutions have allowed member nations to receive monies from the General Fund to conduct various projects, or have them conducted by the World Assembly, resulting in a range of mechanisms specifying when member nations may receive such funds from the two-pronged test of
Quality in Health Services, to the approval process of
Disaster Precautions and Responses, to the infamous mandates in
Supporting and Valuing the Humanities which led to its repeal five months later;
Believing, for these reasons, that it is necessary to establish a standardised mechanism for when World Assembly funding may be granted and how member nations may use these funds, preventing wasteful spending on either side while allowing legislation to focus on the intricacies of its policy than on reiterating the same language as to funding; and
Desiring, therefore, to establish such a mechanism;
The World Assembly hereby enacts as follows.
- General Fund:Funds from the WA General Fund shall be used to cover all administrative expenses of the World Assembly, as well as projects of the World Assembly mandated by resolution where an alternative source of funding is not prescribed.
- Except where mandated otherwise by previously enacted, standing resolutions, the General Fund shall not provide monies for any project in a specific member nation if that member nation can reasonably fund the said project without World Assembly funds or otherwise posing a substantial burden to that member nation's economy or finances.
- Neither member nations nor the World Assembly may use monies from the General Fund assigned for a specific project or task for any purpose other than the said project or task. Diversion of existing funds may not be used to circumvent this.
- Emergency funding: Except as provided for by standing and previously enacted World Assembly law, in the event that the General Fund is insufficient to cover the operations of the World Assembly as per Section 1, the General Accounting Office shall have the authority to divert General Fund monies to projects of materially greater humanitarian, administrative or environmental importance than the projects from which such monies are diverted. Such diversion shall be with the ultimate goal of maximising the ability of the World Assembly to carry out its mandates.
- Reporting: The General Accounting Office, hereinafter GAO, shall annually publish a report detailing the nature and source of all monies held by the World Assembly, whether or not in the General Fund, the extent and nature of all spending using these funds, all investments made or maintained using World Assembly monies, the extent of member nations' contributions to World Assembly funds, and any other relevant information around the World Assembly's financial status. The GAO may redact information from such reports to the extent compelled by personal privacy or national or operational security.
- Interpretation: Section headings do not alter the meaning or interpretation of this resolution. Should a provision of this resolution contradict a past World Assembly resolution still in force, that previous resolution takes precedence. Absent clarification otherwise, terms in the singular include the plural thereof and vice versa.
