US Accounts For Almost 60 Percent of OAS Contributions

A U.S. effort to reduce the Organization of American States’ heavy dependence on U.S. funding is being hobbled by Venezuela – which owes  the OAS $6.9 million – according to a recent GAO report. Congress passed a law in 2013 mandating reforms in the OAS fee structure within five years, and calling for no country to pay more than 50 percent of total annual contributions to the OAS and three other inter-American organizations. Between 2014 and 2016 U. S. taxpayers accounted for more than 57 percent of contributions to the OAS, the Pan American Health Organization, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, and the Pan-American Institute of Geography and History, the GAO report found. (The OAS fee structure is applicable to the other three regional bodies too.) More…