40. The representative of the United States of America expressed reservations on the continued need for temporary assistance to the Secretariat for the implementation of the Convention and abstained on the relevant item of the budget. In this respect the Secretariat drew attention to the fact that the proposed increase for temporary assistance is in proportion far smaller than the overall increase in the budget which corresponds to a considerable increase in the workload. The Secretariat further indicated that services to the Convention provided directly from the regular programme of Unesco could be estimated approximately at 250,000 $ per year.
41. The Committee, under the budgetary line for programme support for ICOMOS, included 7,000 $ for carrying out thematic studies.
42. The Committee shared the point of view expressed by the French delegate that assistance provided by the World Heritage Fund should not be considered solely as complementary or residual contribution to bilateral or multilateral co-operation programmes, but that this assistance should be used more often to launch programmes of this type.