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DE RUCNDT #1620/01 2362044
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FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9964
INFO RUEHXX/GENEVA IO MISSIONS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 001620 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: AORC KUNR UNGA ASIG
SUBJECT: UN ADMINISTRATION:  PENSION BOARD APPROVES 
INVESTMENTS PLAN AND APPOINTS AN AUDIT COMMITTEE 
 
 
The following is a summary of the meeting of the Board of the 
UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, recently held in Nairobi.  It 
was prepared by Thomas Repasch, USUN Minister-Counselor who 
was appointed by the General Assembly to serve as an 
alternate member of the Board. 
 
¶1.  Summary.  At its meeting held in Nairobi July 13-21, the 
33-member Board of the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund considered 
several dozen reports on a range of topics, including: the 
Fund's actuarial valuation; management of the Fund's $32 
billion of investments; and the creation of an Audit 
Committee to improve governance. The meeting, chaired ably by 
Mr. Vladimir Yossifov, a Participant member of the ILO 
Pension Committee, was held on the beautifully landscaped UN 
Headquarters complex located in the hills overlooking the 
Kenyan capital.  In a departure from its usual practice of 
consensus decision making, Board members decided by a vote of 
17 to 11 (with one abstention) to approve the proposal made 
by the Secretary-General to manage the Fund's $8 billion in 
North American Equities in a passive way by outsourcing the 
portfolio, eliminating the need for the UN to maintain a 
staff of managers for these investments.  The two groups 
representing the UN Executive Heads and the Governing Bodies 
voted for the investments plan, while the third group of the 
tri-partite Board, representing the Participants, dismissed 
the plan as premature and risky.  Although the investment 
plan had full backing from the prestigious Investments 
Committee (chaired by William McDonough, former chairman of 
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York), some members 
criticized the presentations made by Under-Secretary-General 
for Management Chris Burnham and his chief of investments, 
Cheiko Okuda, as vague and not convincing. 
 
¶2.  In another move, the Board decided to use part of the 
Fund's 1.29 percent actuarial surplus to restore some 
benefits that were reduced several years ago when the Fund 
experienced financial difficulties.  It also rejected a 
working group recommendation to reduce the Board's membership 
to 21 but approved a measure to change the frequency of its 
meetings from every two years to annually in order to improve 
governance.  The Board rejected a proposal from the ILO and 
retirees to expand the use of the Emergency Fund but decided 
to keep another benefit proposal alive by directing the 
Fund's CEO to visit Ecuador to collect information about the 
plight of UN pensioners who claim they were disadvantaged 
when their country was "dollarized" several years ago.  As 
part of its consideration of the Fund's budget, the Board 
approved supplemental appropriations to:  bolster staff of 
the Investments Management Service; strengthen internal and 
external audit capabilities; provide for travel for members 
of the new Audit Committee; and upgrade positions in the 
Fund's information technology office.  At the same time it 
rejected requests for more office space and for consulting 
services to help in pursuing socially responsible investments. 
 
¶3.  The Pension Board's report, which has been sent 
electronically to the Department (IO/S; Podolsky and 
Glockner) will be issued as a UN document in the coming weeks 
in advance of its consideration by the Fifth Committee during 
this autumn's session.  The Board decided to meet on an 
annual basis and will meet next year in New York; it accepted 
an invitation from the International Fund for Agricultural 
Development (IFAD) to meet in Rome in 2008.  The following 
paragraphs provide details of the Board's deliberations on 
selected items.  Suggestions for the U.S. to consider in 
formulating its position on the Pension Board report are also 
included where applicable.  End summary. 
 
¶4.  Management of investments - This issue was by far the 
most contentious item, producing a rare vote by a body that 
works hard to produce consensus agreements.  The main issue 
was the Secretary-General's proposal to "outsource" the 
Fund's investments in North American Equities.  Although the 
Fund had experienced significant asset increases in recent 
years and had achieved actuarial surpluses, the 
Representative of the Secretary-General (Mr. Burnham) had 
stated in several briefings over the last several months that 
the Fund was "under-performing".  He also suggested that the 
UN should give its investment management business to 
consultants and advisors.  These remarks created concerns 
particularly among the Participants' Group, causing the 
Secretary-General to write to UN staff on July 11, telling 
 
SIPDIS 
them that there was "absolutely no plan or proposal for 
'privatizing' the Pension Fund or changing the system of 
benefits."  The controversy carried over to Nairobi, where 
the Fund's Investments Committee met just before Board's 
meeting and discussed the proposals.  The word circulating 
among some Board members was that the Investments Committee, 
headed by former NY Federal Reserve Chairman William 
McDonough, had a very heated exchange with Burnham about the 
performance of investments.  Rather than conclude that the 
Fund had been "under-performing", the Committee pronounced 
 
 
that the North American Equities portfolio had not kept pace 
with market indexes. 
 
Determining that it would be impossible for the UN's 
investment managers to try to beat the indexes of the world's 
"most efficient investment marketplace," the Investments 
Committee endorsed the plan to manage this portion of the 
Fund's investments in a passive way, hiring a firm to produce 
returns equal to the indexes.  While Burnham claimed that 
this approach would eventually save the Fund money, the 
proposal carried immediate financial implications of $2.9 
million to pay for transition services and the costs of 
indexed management. 
 
Despite efforts to allay the concerns of the Participants, 
the Group opposed the proposals from the very beginning of 
the meeting.  At one point they went so far as to propose 
that the responsibility for investments be taken away from 
the Secretary-General and given to the Chief Executive 
Officer of the Pension Fund.  One leader of the Participants 
Group said repeatedly that the outsourcing plan was risky and 
premature since the Board had not yet received the results of 
the Asset/Liability Management Study that it had approved 
previously.  Many members of the Board (including me) found 
it difficult to distinguish between among proposals to 
improve the management of the beleaguered Investment 
Management Service and those aimed at improving investment 
returns.  Although they have no formal role in the Board's 
decision-making, representatives of the retirees joined with 
the Participants in opposing most proposals. 
 
The drama heightened as the Board plowed through its hefty 
stack of reports and narrowed its focus to the investment 
management issues.  With no compromise in sight, the Board 
suspended its meeting and awaited the outcome of a "working 
group" commissioned to produce an agreement.  The working 
group met for several hours, producing a tentative agreement 
that would express concerns but would also approve the 
investments plan and most of the requested budget increases. 
(Comment: I was a member of this Group, representing the 
Governing Bodies group).  When the Participants' 
representatives took the compromise back to their Group, the 
proposal was rejected, setting the stage for a vote that the 
Participants knew they would lose.  The Participants remained 
defiant in their loss, as other Board members (including me) 
saw the vote as a referendum on the performance of 
Under-Secretary-General Burnham.  Some Board members who 
voted for the plan (including me) privately expressed 
disappointment at the style and approach used by Burnham; 
many also agreed that Burnham's Director of Investments, Ms. 
Cheiko Okuda, while hard-working, was not up to the task of 
managing the Fund's $30 billion-plus in investments. 
 
Comment: When the report is considered by the Fifth Committee 
this autumn, the U.S. might want to express concern about the 
Board's use of voting for this decision and seek information 
on progress made by the Secretariat in implementing the 
investments plan. 
 
¶5.  Actuarial Valuation - The Board was told by its actuaries 
that the Pension Fund had completed 2005 showing a surplus of 
1.29 percent.  This means that the value of the Fund was 1.29 
percent more than the amount needed to pay all of its 
promised benefits, based on the standard assumptions and 
actuarial models. The Board was informed that the surplus was 
primarily the result of gains from the continuing moderate 
levels of inflation and changes in the participant growth 
assumptions.  The surplus was slightly higher than the 1.14 
percent shown during the last valuation in 2003 and 
represented the fifth consecutive valuation that had resulted 
in a surplus. 
 
Because the Fund showed a surplus, there immediately ensued 
discussions on what to do with it.  Representatives of the 
Participants proposed to restore all the benefit reductions 
imposed in the 1990's when the Fund fell on hard times. 
Another proposal made by the ILO Pension Committee was to 
spend some of the money to expand the use of the Emergency 
Fund to help former UN staff members from the Soviet Union 
who were cheated out of benefits promised them by their 
former Communist governments.  Still another idea was to help 
retirees in Ecuador who were "economically disadvantaged" 
when their country dollarized its economy several years ago. 
The Board decided to spend about .32 percent of the surplus 
for partial restoration of reduction in the first consumer 
price index adjustment and elimination of the limitation on 
the right to restoration for existing and future contributing 
participants based on length of prior service.  With this 
decision, there will remain a small portion (.5 percent) of 
the consumer price index reduction still in place.  The 
General Assembly, in its resolution from 2004, pronounced 
that it would not consider approving any other benefit 
 
 
improvements until the reductions were fully restored. 
 
Comment: Even though the Board's decision on the surplus was 
a generally conservative one, the U.S. may still want to ask 
why the Board allowed the Fund to dip below the one percent 
surplus level (to .97 percent) considered prudent by most 
actuarial experts.  The U.S. might also want to oppose the 
Board's decision to send the Fund's Chief Executive Officer 
to Quito to find out more about the plight of the UN retirees 
in Ecuador. Such a trip would clearly be a waste of the 
Fund's resources since the General Assembly has already 
decided that it would not approve any benefit improvements 
until benefit reductions were fully restored. 
 
¶6.  Audit Committee - The Board decided to create an Audit 
Committee and approved Terms of Reference that provides for 
up to nine members, including two "outside experts", one 
member to represent retirees, and two members from each of 
the three groups that comprise the Board.  Using the criteria 
aimed at obtaining experts in audit, financial management, or 
compliance, the groups proposed and the Board appointed the 
following members for 4-year terms.  They Committee is 
expected to meet twice each year, once in New York and once 
in Geneva. 
 
Executive Heads:  K. Matsuura (UN-Geneva); G. Engida 
(UNESCO-Paris) 
Participants:  J.B. McGhie (IFAD-Rome); C. Santos Tejada 
(UNGeneva) 
Governing Bodies: J. LaRiviere (WHO-Geneva); T. Repasch 
(UN-New York) 
 
Comment: The U.S. may want to commend the Board for creating 
the Audit Committee and express hope that the Committee will 
be able to help the Board grapple with oversight, 
accountability, and governance questions.  At the same time, 
the U.S. might want to ask how the Board has assured itself 
that the Audit Committee members are indeed "experts" in the 
appropriate fields and find out, in particular, whether all 
Committee members have circulated their resumes among Board 
members. 
 
¶7.  Size and composition of the Pension Board - The Board 
rejected the preferred recommendation of its longstanding 
Working Group to reduce the size of the Board from 33 members 
to 21.  In doing so, the Board recognized that its decision 
did not respond to requests from the General Assembly to 
reallocate the seats on the Board in order to provide more 
equitable representation of the participating organizations. 
In particular, the General Assembly and the UN Secretariat 
have had long-term concerns that the UN, with up to 70 
percent of the participants and/or beneficiaries in the Fund, 
has only 36 percent of the members of the Board.  The 
21-member proposal would have increased the UN's 
representation to more than 40 percent. The Board did, 
however, adopt a number of other measures to improve its 
efficiency and (hopefully) improve the overall quality of 
governance.  Perhaps most importantly, the Board decided to 
meet annually beginning in 2007, thus reducing the role of 
the Board's 15-member Standing Committee, which had met in 
odd-numbered years to consider the Fund's proposed budget. 
Henceforth the Standing Committee will deal primarily with 
appeals cases.  While deciding to retain its tri-partite 
structure (Governing Bodies; Participants; Executive Heads), 
the Board agreed to pay the costs for two retiree 
representatives to attend the annual meetings.  It also 
approved a variety of measures aimed at making the Board's 
deliberations more efficient. 
 
Comment: The U.S. may want to ask why the Board was 
nonresponsive to the General Assembly's request for proposals 
that would result in more equitable distribution of the seats 
on the Board.  It could ask why the Board has spent several 
years and several hundred thousand dollars studying the 
issue, only to decide to maintain the status quo.  The U.S. 
might want to propose, during the Fifth Committee's 
deliberations, that the General Assembly approve the 
21-member option that was recommended by the Working Group 
but rejected by the Board. 
 
¶8.  Study of Personal Status for Pension Entitlements - What 
started out as a seemingly innocuous proposal by the Pension 
Fund Secretariat to collect information about the evolving 
issue of personal status in participating organizations grew 
into a lively and heated debate about same-sex marriages and 
domestic partnerships.  The Board was informed by the Fund's 
Chief Executive Officer (Bernard Cocheme) that there had been 
significant changes in national legislation in several 
countries and that some member organizations had been 
reviewing the personal status of staff members for the 
determination of entitlements under their staff rules and 
regulations.  Because such decisions had potential 
 
 
consequences for the Pension Fund, the Secretariat proposed 
that it collect data and study the issue.  Some Board Members 
expressed strong concerns about the Fund's engagement in such 
a sensitive and controversial issue, stating that the Fund 
had no business getting out in front of topics such as 
same-sex marriages.  After substantial discussion, the Board 
decided that employees' personal status for the purpose of 
entitlements was entirely up to the member organizations. 
The Board called on all member organizations to make sure 
that their staff members' personal status records "are 
maintained and verified on a fully current basis." 
 
Comment: The U.S. may want to remain silent on this item, 
thereby accepting without question the Board's decision, 
which is consistent with decisions of the UN Secretariat and 
the UN General Assembly. 
 
¶9.  Internal audit arrangements - The controversy over access 
to the Fund's internal audit reports provided a lively few 
hours of heated discussion, including a threat by the CEO to 
resign his post if the audit issue was not resolved 
satisfactorily.  Following a report from the OIOS auditors 
(via video from New York) who serve as the internal auditors 
for the Pension Fund, the CEO of the Fund expressed his 
concerns about the possible impact on the Fund of the General 
Assembly's decision in 2004 to allow member states' access to 
OIOS audit reports. Specifically, the CEO said he was opposed 
to this access provision because the Fund's internal auditors 
report to him and not to the General Assembly.  The 
temperature in the meeting room rose several degrees when I 
asked about the status of the recommendations contained in a 
recent OIOS investigation of allegations of conflict of 
interest related to Pension Fund procurement.  The CEO said 
he was "stunned" that a member state (in this case, the 
United States) had obtained access to a confidential 
investigation that was not yet completed.  He added that he 
would quit as CEO if such a practice continued.  While I 
responded that the report in question was not a draft and 
that the U.S. saw the access as critical for improved 
transparency, the CEO was successful in stirring up support 
for his alarmist position.  Some Board members (primarily 
those representing Participants) agreed with the CEO and 
recommended that the Fund replace OIOS with its own internal 
auditors.  After things calmed down a bit, the Board agreed 
that the Audit Committee should monitor the internal audit 
arrangements for the Fund as a matter of priority. 
 
Comment:  The U.S. may want to emphasize the importance of 
effective oversight of the large and growing UN Pension Fund 
and reiterate that the General Assembly has primary authority 
over budget and other issues related to the Fund.  In the 
interest of transparency, it was therefore appropriate that 
Member States have full and adequate access to audit and 
oversight information. 
 
¶10.  Possible new member organizations - The Board considered 
the applications of the International Organization for 
Migration (IOM) and the International Commission for the 
Conversation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) to become members of 
the Pension Fund.  It decided to recommend to the General 
Assembly that IOM be admitted but concluded that ICCAT did 
not meet the terms of membership because, among other things, 
the Commission's governing body had not authorized the 
Executive Secretary submit an application or to make the 
required changes to its own staff regulations and salary 
scales. 
 
Comment:  The U.S. may want to express satisfaction with the 
Board's decision on IOM and signal its readiness to approve 
IOM membership in the Pension Board.  It may also want to 
highlight the importance for other potential members to 
strictly follow the rules that apply to those considering 
membership. 
 
¶11.  Note:  As a member of the UN Local Pension Committee in 
New York elected by the General Assembly, I attended the 
meeting and participated fully in the discussions.  I took a 
strong interest in the issue of the size and composition of 
the Board, having served on the Working Group that 
recommended a reduction in the Board's membership (to 21).  I 
also intervened frequently in discussions of the Fund's audit 
arrangements and the decision to create an Audit Committee. 
I was subsequently appointed to a three-year term as a member 
of the new Committee.  Being less senior than other 
representatives of the General Assembly on the Board, 
however, I was designated an "alternate" member and therefore 
was not authorized to vote. 
BOLTON