Report of the Joint Inspection Unit on the United Nations System Common Services at Geneva

A/RES/56/279View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 121 Review of the efficiency of the administrative and financial functioning of the United Nations, published in 2002.

What subjects does this mandate have?

9 subjects

Common Services Conference and Meeting Services Consultations Coordination Within UN System Geneva (Switzerland)Information Technology Printing Publishing Telecommunications

What’s in this document?

8 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the recommendations of the Joint Inspection Unit1 and the comments of the Secretary-General and the Administrative Committee on Coordination thereon;2

Reiterates that the use of common services at Geneva should be one of many tools available to organizations and managers to obtain goods and services in the most efficient and effective manner;

Encourages the organizations concerned, in their continuing efforts further to expand areas of cooperative arrangements, to give priority to those services that lend themselves to common delivery using the criteria of efficiency, productivity and cost effectiveness and, where feasible, to take into account the recommendations contained in the report of the Unit,1 bearing in mind also the distinct mandates, roles, tasks and rules of each individual participating organization;

Welcomes the comments and views contained in the relevant paragraphs of the first report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions,5 in particular regarding telecommunications and information technology services, conference services, printing and publishing, as well as general administration;

Notes the efforts made to date by the Geneva-based organizations of the United Nations system for the enhancement of common services, and encourages them to pursue, with a more structured approach, the improvement of existing common services and the development of new common approaches, within the framework of the Management Ownership Committee and the Task Force on Common Services and its working groups;

Requests the Secretary-General to encourage the Management Ownership Committee, when determining the scope and pace of implementation of common services arrangements at Geneva, to adopt streamlined consultation procedures that would promote timely agreement on which services should be delivered in common or jointly, with a view to the possible full launching of the plan of action for Geneva common services earlier than the targeted year of 2010;

Invites the Unit to continue to monitor progress in the development and consolidation of common services at Geneva, and at other duty stations where the United Nations system offices and agencies are established, and to report thereon to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session in the context of its annual report;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session on the implementation of the present resolution.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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