Assembly/AU/Dec.578(XXV) Page 1 DECISION ON THE SCALE OF ASSESSMENT AND ALTERNATIVE SOURCES OF FINANCING THE AFRICAN UNION Doc. Assembly/AU/5(XXV) The Assembly, 1. TAKES NOTE of the Report of the Ad-Hoc Ministerial Committee on the review of the scale of assessment; 2. DECIDES to endorse the recommendations of the Ad-Hoc Ministerial Committee as follows; i) The new scale of assessment will be based on the principles of solidarity, equitable payment and capacity to pay and in a way that ensures no single country bears a disproportionate share of the budget; ii) The new scale of assessment shall be based on achieving the following targets a) b) c) iii) That the new scale of assessment shall be based on a tier system as follows; a) b) c) iv) 3. 4. 100% of the Union‟s Operational budget; 75% of Union‟s Program budget; 25% of Union‟s Peace support operations budget. All countries with GDP above 4% - tier 1; All countries above 1% but below 4% - tier 2; All countries from 1% and below – tier 3. The achievement of the Targets above in (ii) should be phased over 5 years starting from January 2016. FURTHER DECIDES that: i) The new scale will be based on the principle that the five Member States in the Tier 1 shall take 60 percent of the budget shared equally; whereas Member States in Tier 2 and Tier 3 pay based on capacity to pay as contained in Option 3 of the proposal; ii) The new scale will be based on a ceiling of 12 percent without the imposition of floor rate; iii) The new scale will be implemented for the financial years 2016, 2017 and 2018. ADOPTS the new AU scale of assessment which constitutes a hybrid of pure capacity to pay for some Member States and equal payment scales for others in accordance with the percentage of the budget under each tier;