R 231715Z MAR 09
FM USMISSION GENEVA
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 8196

UNCLAS GENEVA 000250 
 
 
DEPT FOR PRM 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PREL
SUBJECT: (SBU) UNHCR 44TH STANDING COMMITTEE: FOCUS ON 
MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 
 
REF: A. GENEVA 238 
 
 
¶1. (U) SUMMARY. Developments related to UNHCR's operational 
management and program budgets figured prominently during the 
March 3-5, 2008, Standing Committee meeting.  Discussions 
included UNHCR's ongoing structural and management change 
process, implementation of recommendations made by the Board 
of Auditors, inspections and investigations undertaken by the 
Inspector General's Office, and program budgets and income. 
UNHCR is on track to finish the roll-out process of its 
Global Needs Assessment and Focus planning software over the 
course of the next few months, tools that will underpin its 
2010 budget.  UNHCR fears that the suffering global economy 
and fluctuating exchange rates will negatively impact on its 
income levels in 2009, thus adding more urgency to UNHCR's 
efforts to maximize productivity, efficiency and cost 
savings.  During the Standing Committee, member states 
generally voiced approval for UNHCR's reform process, which 
was echoed in a recent UNHCR staff survey. Member states did 
not react to UNHCR's budget presentation, as the preparatory 
documents were circulated only one day in advance of the 
meeting.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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UNHCR's Structural and Management Reform 
---------- 
 
¶2. (U) Deputy High Commissioner Craig Johnstone and Volker 
Turk, the Director of the Office for Organizational 
Development and Management, led the discussion focused on 
structural and management changes implemented to date and the 
road ahead in 2009.  UNHCR has made progress in its reform 
and structural and management change initiatives and is on 
track to finish the roll-out process over the course of the 
next few months, with plans to incorporate the changes into 
the 2010 budget. Currently in the implementation stage is the 
new Focus software as well as the Global Needs Assessment 
(GNA), which have received very positive feedback from the 
field staff that has been trained thus far.  UNHCR has been 
providing extensive training and workshops over the past two 
months with field staff while headquarters staff continues to 
receive training.  UNHCR continues working on and finalizing 
its Global Management Accountability Framework, a map of the 
division of accountabilities, responsibilities and 
authorities between UNHCR headquarters, regional offices and 
field offices.  It will also establish a Steering Committee 
for follow-up both at headquarters and in the field. 
 
¶3. (U) The decentralization and regionalization process 
continues at UNHCR with the goal of having a better response 
time and a greater capacity.  To be able to build this 
capacity, UNHCR is placing the Office of the Director of the 
Europe Bureau in Brussels, as well as relocating the Office 
of the Deputy Director of the Americas Bureau to Panama. The 
Deputy Director of the European Bureau and the Director of 
the Americas Bureau will remain at headquarters.  UNHCR is 
currently engaged in discussions regarding the next steps of 
the process, including consideration of adding new regional 
offices in both southern and western Africa. Decisions will 
be aided by the Global Management Accountability Framework, 
which analyzes the division of workload and responsibility. 
Some member states questioned the ability to manage all of 
these changes at the same time and how UNHCR can maintain a 
decentralized yet coherent organization.  Overall, however, 
member states supported the bold approach to restructuring 
and many said it could be replicated in other parts of the 
UN.  The U.S. voiced support for the outposting and 
decentralization process, and expressed its interest in more 
details towards action plans and the forthcoming 
accountability frameworks. The U.S. also asked for the 
overall cost savings of these efforts and UNHCR's plans to 
establish a unit for monitoring and evaluating UNHCR's global 
performance. 
 
¶4. (U) A major concern according to UNHCR continues to be its 
high number of 144 members of staff in between assignments 
(SIBAs).  The auditors have strongly recommended that it 
carry out systematic and accurate budgetary monitoring of 
costs associated with SIBAs.  The DHC stated that SIBAs add 
an additional $30 million cost to the budget.  UNHCR 
maintains the stance that there will always be a number of 
legitimate SIBAs who have completed the appropriate rotation, 
but there are also those who abuse the ability to reject 
offered assignments.  A few of the SIBAs are on short-term 
posts, but there is currently no flexibility for their 
classification in human resources as being usefully employed, 
since they are not filling permanent full-time positions. In 
order to address the issue of those who are working but 
considered SIBAs, the capacity of UNHCR,s human resources 
employee management system needs to improve as well as a new 
career management support agency to ensure appropriate 
internal placement.  This is a need UNHCR acknowledges and 
plans to address in addition to the new three-strike policy. 
While the U.S. Del agreed with UNHCR about the reduction in 
SIBAs, they also urged the consideration of the need for 
staff with appropriate qualifications to fill the positions 
in addition to evaluation of work performance. 
 
¶5. (U) In order to increase efficiency and its capacity to 
respond to emergencies, UNHCR has made plans to consolidate 
asset and supply information in a central location for faster 
and more comprehensive deployment in emergency response 
situation.  UNHCR plans to establish full reviews of all 
assets and will be cleaning up its asset database.  The Asset 
Management Unit has been relocated to the Global Service 
Center in Budapest to be closer to Supply Management Service 
for better efficiency.  They now have new policies regarding 
inventories, non-expendable property and serially tracked 
items. 
 
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Global Reviews and Surveys 
---------- 
 
¶6. (U) UNHCR has undertaken several inspections and surveys 
regarding its staff and departments to make general and 
specific assessments of which the baselines, or recommended 
averages, are being taken very seriously.  The 2008 Global 
Staff Survey results gave a mixed outlook on the way forward 
and provided suggestions on additional reforms that might be 
necessary.  The response rate of 2008 was significantly 
higher than 2006, 57 percent vs. 34 percent, respectively. 
The results show that UNHCR staff are highly motivated and 
engaged, proud of their work, and confident in their 
abilities to respond to UNHCR's mandate.  However, at the 
same time, it was found that one of four staff members lacks 
full confidence in his/her managers, and that there is a 48% 
confidence rating in senior management.  The questionnaire 
asked about long-term plans, and it was found that 40% of 
staff would consider leaving UNHCR should a similar job with 
the same pay be offered elsewhere.  Ethics was another area 
in which there was a statistically significant decrease in 
confidence and one out of four staff members was unaware as 
to where to report ethics issues.  Considering these negative 
findings, some areas for improvement under this survey were: 
management and professional development, improved upper-level 
transparency, human resource development, vertical internal 
communications, as well as ethics.  The US expressed its 
approval of the benchmarks and guidelines in place. All of 
these issues are currently included in the reform process and 
a Steering Committee will be initiated for follow-up on these 
concerns.  Previously, however, as reported in the Global 
Survey, there had been concern at the low level of 
implementation of the action plans created to address several 
previously identified issues of concern. 
 
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Update from the Inspector General 
---------- 
 
¶7. (U) The Inspector General Kofi Asomani said that his 
office had initiated several inspections to delve into some 
deeper concerns involving operational activities.  These were 
conducted in nine countries and also at headquarters.  They 
found that offices continue to improve in general; Jordan and 
Ethiopia were specifically noted as exhibiting superior 
external relations.  On the other hand, they found that 
refugees and asylum seekers need to have better access to 
UNHCR staff; there were 113 registered cases of staff 
misconduct registered during 2008, one-third of which 
directly affected UNHCR beneficiaries, most commonly under 
the categories of abuse of authority and harassment. The U.S. 
voiced its deep concern on this extraordinary number of 
cases, solicited the strengthening of the Office of the 
Inspector General (IGO's) efforts in following up on these 
efforts, and encouraged cooperation among in-house actors to 
address these complaints throughout the agency. UNHCR has 
since implemented a web-based complaint system for 
beneficiaries and staff to log complaints through to 
headquarters.  Canada pointed out that an online complaint 
system might not be accessible to all UNHCR beneficiaries, 
but the Inspector General assured member states that it would 
be improved and made highly accessible.  The Netherlands and 
the U.S. urged UNHCR to implement the recommendations made in 
the European Commission's Anti-Fraud Office's (OLAF's) 
independent review undertaken in 2008; the Inspector General 
said that the High Commissioner had established a working 
group to develop an implementation plan by the end of March. 
The U.S. pointed out that UNHCR's oversight committee, which 
oversees audits, does not meet standards for independence. 
The U.S. also asked UNHCR to clarify the role of the IGO in 
relation to other in-house functions, like the Ethics Office 
and Office of the Ombudsman. 
 
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Cooperating with Others 
---------- 
 
¶8. (U) Volker Turk reported that in the process of 
strengthening its own capacity, UNHCR has taken an active 
stance on coordination with other agencies.  It continues to 
be an active member of the Interagency Standing Committee 
(IASC). IASC has recently been working to consolidate views 
and create a unified stance and shared policy on a variety of 
issues such as climate change and migration. In addition, 
UNHCR is in consultations with OCHA to discuss its management 
of the Global Needs Assessment (GNA) and Results Based 
Management initiatives.  There will be an IASC meeting about 
the GNA later in March. 
 
¶9. (U)COMMENT: Donors have been unsure whether the GNA will 
comprise a full "Global" Needs Assessment in which all 
stakeholders, areas of responsibility are outlined, or 
whether the GNA will only present a snapshot of needs falling 
within the UNHCR mandate.  UNHCR staff clarified to U.S.Del 
that UNHCR will only present donors with its comprehensive 
plans for UNHCR planned activities, as it would be too 
ambitious to capture the needs of other entities like host 
governments and UNICEF.  END COMMENT. 
 
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Budget and Funding 
---------- 
 
¶10. (U) DHC Johnstone reported that 2008 was a good financial 
year for UNHCR: contributions amounted to 92 percent of 
UNHCR,s approved budget (as compared to 91 percent in 2007 
and 79 percent in 2006).  He said that a question mark looms 
over 2009 (given the current global financial situation and 
fluctuating exchange rates), and a dark cloud looms over 2010 
(given UNHCR,s plans to ask donors for more funds under the 
GNA and the full impact of the financial crisis on government 
budgets).  Because the budget for 2009 was released only one 
day prior to the Standing Committee meeting, there was no 
in-depth discussion. 
 
¶11. (U) UNHCR is pushing for pledges to be honored as early 
as possible so that it can ensure continuity of programming. 
Throughout the presentation, member states posed questions 
regarding the future of Supplementary Budgets (SBs); UNHCR 
has stated that the new four-pillared budget will incorporate 
some of the SBs, while IDP programs, longer-term 
reintegration programming and emergency responses will 
continue to be funded as SBs, so they will not be spending 
any more money than they actually receive in those 
non-core-mandate areas. 
 
¶12. (U) COMMENT:  The pillar system will allocate funds 
between four pillars: 1) core refugee activities, 2) 
statelessness activities, 3) longer-term reintegration 
activities and 4) IDP activities.  Funding cannot be shifted 
between pillars.  END COMMENT. 
 
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Strengths and Areas for Improvement 
---------- 
 
¶13. (U) According to Turk, management and resource polices 
are at the top of this list as areas for improvement.  To 
address management and professional development as well as 
ethics issues, UNHCR has begun the decentralization process 
as well as set up an Ombudsman and Ethics offices.  UNHCR 
staff has contributed to the strength of the Structural 
Management Change process by being generally highly motivated 
and engaged, proud of their work and organization.  To track 
the progress of improvement, UNHCR has initiated a Steering 
Committee for dedicated follow up as well as having regional 
and field offices follow up internally. 
 
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COMMENT 
---------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) UNHCR headquarters has been actively striving to 
improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of its work in the 
field.    The current financial climate has added urgency to 
these efforts.  Unfortunately, many of the questions and 
concerns voiced by countries in attendance were left 
unanswered, including a request that UNHCR quantify the 
impacts of its reforms on its budget and the field and a 
concern that UNHCR's efforts to decentralize/ regionalize 
should be counterbalanced by a commensurate effort to 
establish strong quality control measures at the central 
level. 
 
 
STORELLA