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Statements Commission on Human Rights
REMARKS OF ACTING HIGH COMMISSIONER FOLLOWING PRESENTATION OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW OF OHCHR
14 April 2004
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WEDNESDAY 14 APRIL 2004
Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished Members of the Commission,
I should like to thank the Joint Inspection Unit for its Management Review of OHCHR and also to thank its Chairperson for the presentation he has just made.
The report of the Joint Inspection Unit comes shortly after a similar report of the OIOS which had been called for by the General Assembly. The OIOS made seventeen recommendations. I am pleased to inform the Commission that OHCHR has been making a determined effort to implement these recommendations and, so far, OIOS has considered 11 out of 17 of them implemented and closed. Others are in the process of implementation and some are near to closure.
In line with the OIOS report, the structure of OHCHR has been adjusted in order to better respond to the Office’s evolving mandate and objectives and a new organizational bulletin of the Secretary-General has been approved and issued providing for a structure that includes: the Staff Office of the High Commissioner, the New York Office, Support Service, which includes Administration and Information Technology Management, a Treaties and Commission Branch, a Research and Right to Development Branch, a Capacity Building and Field Operations Branch, a Special Procedures Branch and an External Relations Branch. The duties of each Senior Officer have been carefully defined including those of the High Commissioner, the Deputy High Commissioner, the Chief of the Staff Office and the Chiefs of Branches. There are no overlaps in these definitions. The nomenclature of entities in the office has been standardized in line with those of the United Nations Secretariat.
The JIU report contains ten recommendations, on each of which the Secretary-General has made written comments that are before you. Allow me to refer briefly to the highlights of the JIU recommendations.
As regards the recommendation concerning the request for a post of Chief of Staff, it may be noted that the General Assembly decided that consideration of the establishment of the post be postponed and the D-2 post was not approved as part of the Programme Budget for 2004/2005. The incoming High Commissioner will, therefore, have full latitude to decide how to approach this matter in the submission she will make for the 2006/2007 budget. She will undoubtedly do so keeping in mind the recommendations of the JIU.
As regards the recommendation relating to the grading of the posts of the Chiefs of Branch, this is a matter that would need to be addressed within the process of the preparation of the budget submission for 2006/2007.
As regards the second recommendation, I need only say that the National Institutions Team is well integrated into the Capacity Building and Field Operations Branch.
As to the third recommendation, regarding OHCHR field operations, I may say that the pattern is clearly one of OHCHR contributing to human rights components of United Nations peace operations.
As regards recommendation four, calling for a system to account for the assets of field offices, this is being implemented, as is indicated in the written comments.
As regards the fifth recommendation, OHCHR attaches great importance to the development of an information technology strategy. Allow me to say that very little resources are provided for this from the regular budget and OHCHR is highly dependent on voluntary contributions for this.
As regards recommendations six, seven and eight, OHCHR is committed to a policy of equitable geographical distribution within the framework of the principles of competence and integrity laid down in the United Nations Charter.
With regard to recommendations nine and ten, OHCHR is working actively with the Office of Human Resources Management to align its recruitment and contractual policies with those of the Secretariat.
The personnel administration of OHCHR is rather complex due to the fact that the Office is just ten years old and relies on voluntary contributions to the extent of two thirds of its resources. As recommended by the JIU, the Office is now actively seeking to integrate all OHCHR staff under a unified contractual system. Currently, OHCHR staff can be divided into four broad categories:
(i) staff on established (regular budget) posts with regular contracts who have been recruited through the UN Secretariat central recruitment procedures and who are administered under the 100 Series of the Staff Rules;
(ii) staff on temporary posts (funded through voluntary contribution) who have gone through prescribed UN Secretariat procedures and, like the first category, are on regular contracts;
(iii) temporary staff hired in the past for service at OHCHR Headquarters under project contracts; and
(iv) personnel in the field, who, in most cases, were also recruited under project contracts, mainly by the United Nations Office for Project services (UNOPS) with whom OHCHR has a Memorandum of Understanding approved by the UN’s Department of Management.
Historically, this situation was brought about by the fact that staff positions for a number of important regular budget OHCHR mandates (e.g. special procedures) have been funded from “temporary assistance” rather than posts. As a result, staff servicing those mandates could only be employed on an annual basis and were not centrally recruited, thus leaving OHCHR with a substantial pool of “temporary” staff, if not in actual fact in terms of contract.
To compound the problem, the funding provided from the regular budget is nowhere near to meeting the needs of OHCHR which has had to resort to the use of voluntary contributions to hire staff on core assignments such as the following:
(i) support for the treaty monitoring bodies;
(ii) support for human rights special rapporteurs and other special procedures;
(iii) support for capacity building and field offices in Member States;
(iv) staff to support activities for the protection of vulnerable groups such as minorities, indigenous peoples and migrant workers; and
(v) staff to carry out research in areas such as the implementation of economic social and cultural rights and the right to development.
Given the unpredictable nature of extra-budgetary funding, staff employed for these purposes was also issued temporary contracts outside of central recruitment systems.
During the summer and autumn of 2003, OHCHR developed a comprehensive strategy for moving to a situation in which staff on such “core” assignments is brought within the mainstream of the United Nations Secretariat, which was endorsed by the staff of the Office. It would be too long and technical for me to go into the details of the strategy. Let me just say that OHCHR is committed to achieving the goal of regularizing and standardizing staff contracts within the shortest possible time and in any case no later than December 2006 when, consistent with the Secretary-General’s reform plan, all staff will be subject to rotation and must have contracts that allow this to happen. OHCHR is also committed to the principle of equitable geographical distribution.
The challenge facing OHCHR is to retain the considerable expertise developed by temporary staff while, at the same time, offering career development opportunities both to regular staff and temporary staff and dealing with the temporary contract issue, while broadening the geographical base.
At this time, OHCHR has decided that all new or vacant posts at the P-4 level and above of a continuing (core) nature will be filled under the UN Secretariat’s Central Review Body procedure, thus ensuring that staff recruited for those positions are regular UN staff. A similar procedure will be followed for posts at the P-1/P-2 and P-3 levels These procedures are being designed so as to ensure career development opportunities for regular staff without penalizing temporary OHCHR staff on whom, as I said before, the Office must be able to continue to rely.
Every UN department and office has a number of temporary positions and OHCHR is no exception. It is foreseen, therefore, that some positions (e.g. involved in providing technical cooperation advisory services and supporting other field activities) may continue to be temporary and staff recruited accordingly.
Based on the experience gained during the process I have just described to you, other steps are foreseen which are aimed at bringing all staff performing duties of a continuing (core) nature under a unified contractual system..
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
*******
Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished Members of the Commission,
I should like to thank the Joint Inspection Unit for its Management Review of OHCHR and also to thank its Chairperson for the presentation he has just made.
The report of the Joint Inspection Unit comes shortly after a similar report of the OIOS which had been called for by the General Assembly. The OIOS made seventeen recommendations. I am pleased to inform the Commission that OHCHR has been making a determined effort to implement these recommendations and, so far, OIOS has considered 11 out of 17 of them implemented and closed. Others are in the process of implementation and some are near to closure.
In line with the OIOS report, the structure of OHCHR has been adjusted in order to better respond to the Office’s evolving mandate and objectives and a new organizational bulletin of the Secretary-General has been approved and issued providing for a structure that includes: the Staff Office of the High Commissioner, the New York Office, Support Service, which includes Administration and Information Technology Management, a Treaties and Commission Branch, a Research and Right to Development Branch, a Capacity Building and Field Operations Branch, a Special Procedures Branch and an External Relations Branch. The duties of each Senior Officer have been carefully defined including those of the High Commissioner, the Deputy High Commissioner, the Chief of the Staff Office and the Chiefs of Branches. There are no overlaps in these definitions. The nomenclature of entities in the office has been standardized in line with those of the United Nations Secretariat.
The JIU report contains ten recommendations, on each of which the Secretary-General has made written comments that are before you. Allow me to refer briefly to the highlights of the JIU recommendations.
As regards the recommendation concerning the request for a post of Chief of Staff, it may be noted that the General Assembly decided that consideration of the establishment of the post be postponed and the D-2 post was not approved as part of the Programme Budget for 2004/2005. The incoming High Commissioner will, therefore, have full latitude to decide how to approach this matter in the submission she will make for the 2006/2007 budget. She will undoubtedly do so keeping in mind the recommendations of the JIU.
As regards the recommendation relating to the grading of the posts of the Chiefs of Branch, this is a matter that would need to be addressed within the process of the preparation of the budget submission for 2006/2007.
As regards the second recommendation, I need only say that the National Institutions Team is well integrated into the Capacity Building and Field Operations Branch.
As to the third recommendation, regarding OHCHR field operations, I may say that the pattern is clearly one of OHCHR contributing to human rights components of United Nations peace operations.
As regards recommendation four, calling for a system to account for the assets of field offices, this is being implemented, as is indicated in the written comments.
As regards the fifth recommendation, OHCHR attaches great importance to the development of an information technology strategy. Allow me to say that very little resources are provided for this from the regular budget and OHCHR is highly dependent on voluntary contributions for this.
As regards recommendations six, seven and eight, OHCHR is committed to a policy of equitable geographical distribution within the framework of the principles of competence and integrity laid down in the United Nations Charter.
With regard to recommendations nine and ten, OHCHR is working actively with the Office of Human Resources Management to align its recruitment and contractual policies with those of the Secretariat.
The personnel administration of OHCHR is rather complex due to the fact that the Office is just ten years old and relies on voluntary contributions to the extent of two thirds of its resources. As recommended by the JIU, the Office is now actively seeking to integrate all OHCHR staff under a unified contractual system. Currently, OHCHR staff can be divided into four broad categories:
(i) staff on established (regular budget) posts with regular contracts who have been recruited through the UN Secretariat central recruitment procedures and who are administered under the 100 Series of the Staff Rules;
(ii) staff on temporary posts (funded through voluntary contribution) who have gone through prescribed UN Secretariat procedures and, like the first category, are on regular contracts;
(iii) temporary staff hired in the past for service at OHCHR Headquarters under project contracts; and
(iv) personnel in the field, who, in most cases, were also recruited under project contracts, mainly by the United Nations Office for Project services (UNOPS) with whom OHCHR has a Memorandum of Understanding approved by the UN’s Department of Management.
Historically, this situation was brought about by the fact that staff positions for a number of important regular budget OHCHR mandates (e.g. special procedures) have been funded from “temporary assistance” rather than posts. As a result, staff servicing those mandates could only be employed on an annual basis and were not centrally recruited, thus leaving OHCHR with a substantial pool of “temporary” staff, if not in actual fact in terms of contract.
To compound the problem, the funding provided from the regular budget is nowhere near to meeting the needs of OHCHR which has had to resort to the use of voluntary contributions to hire staff on core assignments such as the following:
(i) support for the treaty monitoring bodies;
(ii) support for human rights special rapporteurs and other special procedures;
(iii) support for capacity building and field offices in Member States;
(iv) staff to support activities for the protection of vulnerable groups such as minorities, indigenous peoples and migrant workers; and
(v) staff to carry out research in areas such as the implementation of economic social and cultural rights and the right to development.
Given the unpredictable nature of extra-budgetary funding, staff employed for these purposes was also issued temporary contracts outside of central recruitment systems.
During the summer and autumn of 2003, OHCHR developed a comprehensive strategy for moving to a situation in which staff on such “core” assignments is brought within the mainstream of the United Nations Secretariat, which was endorsed by the staff of the Office. It would be too long and technical for me to go into the details of the strategy. Let me just say that OHCHR is committed to achieving the goal of regularizing and standardizing staff contracts within the shortest possible time and in any case no later than December 2006 when, consistent with the Secretary-General’s reform plan, all staff will be subject to rotation and must have contracts that allow this to happen. OHCHR is also committed to the principle of equitable geographical distribution.
The challenge facing OHCHR is to retain the considerable expertise developed by temporary staff while, at the same time, offering career development opportunities both to regular staff and temporary staff and dealing with the temporary contract issue, while broadening the geographical base.
At this time, OHCHR has decided that all new or vacant posts at the P-4 level and above of a continuing (core) nature will be filled under the UN Secretariat’s Central Review Body procedure, thus ensuring that staff recruited for those positions are regular UN staff. A similar procedure will be followed for posts at the P-1/P-2 and P-3 levels These procedures are being designed so as to ensure career development opportunities for regular staff without penalizing temporary OHCHR staff on whom, as I said before, the Office must be able to continue to rely.
Every UN department and office has a number of temporary positions and OHCHR is no exception. It is foreseen, therefore, that some positions (e.g. involved in providing technical cooperation advisory services and supporting other field activities) may continue to be temporary and staff recruited accordingly.
Based on the experience gained during the process I have just described to you, other steps are foreseen which are aimed at bringing all staff performing duties of a continuing (core) nature under a unified contractual system..
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
*******