The VISC is an amount of the Environment Fund budget that each Member State is requested to contribute, taking into account the country’s specific socio-economic circumstances. It is a tool that helps share the funding responsibility according to the capacity of each Member State to pay, in alignment with the principle of a common but shared responsibility. The starting point for developing the VISC is the UN Scale of Assessments, approved by the Member States at the UN General Assembly, applied to the Environment Fund budget. This is the minimum requested from each Member State each year. The previous high level of contributions. This applies to all the Member States who have contributed more than the UN Scale of Assessments would warrant. UNEP uses the previous 3 years for assessing this to be realistic.