Give international organizations their own funding, collected from cross-border activity instead of country contributions
In short
- The world adds a very small shared charge to cross-border plane tickets and to ship fuel.
- The money goes straight to international organizations without passing through any country's budget.
- No big country can stop paying to make an organization do what it wants.
- All member countries meet as equals to decide the broad split of the money.
If this comes true
In a shelter near a border, food handouts do not stop for a single day even in the winter a powerful country stops its contribution, and a young worker reads out the families' names in the usual order.
Perhaps
Staff of international organizations, whom no one has elected, might come to think of the money as their own and push ahead with plans that do not fit life in faraway countries.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal moves the main funding of international organizations away from contributions that each government decides every year, and toward a very small charge applied in the same way worldwide to activity that crosses borders. The charge would apply to cross-border plane tickets, fuel used by ships on international routes, large cross-border financial transactions and similar activities, all of which are hard for any one country to tax fairly on its own and all of which profit from international connections. The rates would be set by a treaty among all member countries. Each country's tax authority would collect the charge and send it straight to a shared account, without passing it through its own national budget. If a collecting country stops sending the money, its right to vote in the international organizations is suspended. For the money in the shared account, a general assembly in which every member country has one vote decides the broad split among the organizations, and each organization decides how to spend its share within that range. Independent auditors check the accounts every year, and the results are made public. Country contributions continue until the independent funding reaches a certain share, and after that they are limited to the part that countries add voluntarily. Lower rates are set as exceptions for flights to and from poor countries and for transport that is essential to life on remote islands and in landlocked countries.
BenefitsFree international organizations from the wallets of a few countries
If funding comes from charges on cross-border activity, international organizations can keep working even when a particular country stops contributing. Because money can no longer be used as a shield to bend an organization's judgment, it can issue research results and warnings without hesitation, even ones that are inconvenient for a big country. Because yearly income can be foreseen, organizations can plan for plain but essential work that takes many years, such as monitoring infectious diseases and preparing for disasters. They no longer need to go around collecting donations at every crisis, and they can respond faster. Because all member countries decide the broad split as equals, countries with less money to give can also make their voices heard on an organization's priorities. The charges fall on activities that profit from international connections, and people who fly across borders or move large sums of money tend to be relatively well off, so the burden comes closer to matching the ability to pay. Because the same rate is applied worldwide at once, even to activities that one country would find hard to tax alone, countries are also less likely to start a race to cut rates against each other.
DrawbacksThe danger of an unelected body having its own wallet
The staff of international organizations are not elected by the voters of any country. Relying on country contributions was also a way of keeping international organizations under the watch of national governments, who represent their people. With their own funding, that oversight weakens, and it becomes harder to stop an organization from growing itself or pushing ahead with plans that do not fit local conditions. If the split is decided by one vote per country, people in the countries that actually pay more of the charges may feel their views are not fully reflected. The charge itself could also provoke strong resistance to having something like a tax imposed from outside the country, and there is a high chance that national legislatures would refuse to approve the treaty. Charges on plane tickets and fuel are not small burdens for island countries that depend on tourism or for countries that depend on trade with distant partners. Also, even if the voting right of a country that stops sending money is suspended, if a big country seriously walks away, the legitimacy of the organization itself is shaken. As the flow of money shifts from countries to international organizations, there is also a risk that the political involvement of countries, which has supported these organizations until now, may fade away.
Learn the background
International organizations have been created to deal with problems that no single country can solve, such as infectious diseases, climate, refugees and food crises, but most of them run on contributions that member governments decide every year. As a result, a few countries that give a lot of money have great influence over an organization's policies and appointments, and they can pressure it by cutting or stopping their contributions when they dislike a decision. On the paying side too, money for international organizations is spending that is hard for a country's own voters to see, so it is the first thing cut when budgets get tight. The result is that international organizations cannot plan even a few years ahead, go around asking countries for donations every time a crisis hits, and watch the damage spread while they wait for the money to come in. Reforms to the way contributions are made have continued, but as long as the money comes from the wallets of national governments, the basic problem stays the same: the organizations are tied to the wishes of the countries that pay. Organizations that are supposed to face global problems keep being swayed by the domestic politics of a few countries.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-23b) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes