VZCZCXRO9460
RR RUEHRN
DE RUCNDT #0068/01 0301639
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 301639Z JAN 09
FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5715
INFO RUEHMD/AMEMBASSY MADRID 6329
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0740
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 3503
RUEHRN/USMISSION UN ROME
RUEHUNV/USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA 0752

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 USUN NEW YORK 000068 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: AORC KUNR PREL UNGA
SUBJECT: UN - GA LAUNCHES NEW ICT SYSTEM AND STRATEGY AND 
DECIDES ON THE GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE TO MANAGE THEM 
 
REF: A. 08 USUN 000985 
     ¶B. 08 USUN 000913 
 
¶1.  Summary:  The General Assembly, on December 24, 2008, 
took action on the proposals contained in several reports 
from the Secretary-General on the Secretariat,s information 
and communications technology (ICT) systems.  The reform of 
the Organization's ICT systems was one of the reforms 
identified by the 2005 Summit of World Leaders.  The central 
component of the resolution adopted by the GA approves the 
process of replacing the backbone information system for 
managing the financial, human and physical resources of the 
Secretariat and other fragmented, incompatible systems with a 
single, commercially available, integrated system for the 
entire Secretariat, including peacekeeping and field 
missions.  Recognizing the need for central management, the 
GA also decided to place the Office of Information and 
Communications Technology (OICT) in the Executive Office of 
the SYG.. 
 
¶2.  The following reports were among those considered by the 
Fifth Committee: Enterprise systems for the UN Secretariat 
worldwide - A/62/510/Rev.1; ICT governance and strategy - 
A/62/793 and Corr.1 and Add.1; Disaster recovery and business 
continuity - A/62/477; and the report of the Advisory 
Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) - 
A/63/487 and Corrs.1-2.  The major components of the 
resolution are reviewed in the paragraphs below. 
 
¶3.  As reported in the following paragraphs, the GA also took 
action on a number of related issues, including on disaster 
recovery and business continuity, including the relocation of 
the Secretariat's HQ data center during the Capital Master 
Plan (CMP) construction period,  and establishment of a 
secondary communications facility in Valencia, Spain to 
support peacekeeping operations.  The GA also took action on 
other enterprise systems, including the Customer Relationship 
Management (CRM) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) 
systems; on implementation of International Public Sector 
Accounting Standards (IPSAS); and on Knowledge Management. 
 
¶4.  Financial Implications.  The estimated costs of all 
components of the Secretary-General's proposals during the 
period 2008 - 2013 are now estimated to be in the range of 
$275 - $325 million.  Such expenses will cover items such as 
software licenses, customization, hardware, integration, 
change management and training.  Implementation will take 
place in phases.  Decisions on funding throughout the 
propject period will follow the GA's considering of 
regularly-scheduled progress reports.  The expenditures will 
be funded under the regular budget, peacekeeping support 
account, and from extrabudgetary resources.  Initial 
expenditures of approximately $13 will be charged against the 
2008-2009 regular budget.  Approximately $8.5 million will be 
charged against the July 08/June 09 peacekeeping support 
account and approximately $7.9 million will be financed 
during the 2008-2009 biennium from extrabudgetary resources. 
 
 
¶5.  The Fifth Committee, during its March 2009 resumed 
session, will consider a report on the Secretariat's plan to 
manage the risk of moving the Secretariat's primary data 
center to a new facility under the North Lawn at UN 
Headquarters during the CMP construction phase.  End Summary. 
 
 
Replacing IMIS with ERP 
----------------------- 
¶6.  Following up on the decision taken by the GA, in 
resolution 60/283 on July 7, 2006, to replace the fragmented, 
out-of-date, Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) 
- the backbone information system for managing the core 
financial, administrative and management operations of the 
Secretariat including at Headquarters, agencies, funds and 
programs, regional offices and peacekeeping missions - with a 
next-generation Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or other 
comparable system, the GA launched the 5-year process of 
replacing IMIS with an ERP system - a single, commercially 
available, industry-standard information system widely 
deployed worldwide.  The ERP system will be used by all 
Secretariat staff, regardless of their location. 
 
Adoption of IPSAS 
----------------- 
¶7.  As noted in the SYG,s latest progress report on 
implementation of International Public Sector Accounting 
Standards (IPSAS) by the Organization (A/62/806), adoption of 
the Standards, which incorporate international best practices 
 
USUN NEW Y 00000068  002 OF 002 
 
 
for public sector and not-for-profit organizations 
accounting, is a key UN management reform initiative that 
will improve UN governance, accountability and transparency. 
It is expected that IPSAS implementation in the Secretariat, 
originally scheduled to start in 2010, will commence in 2012 
when the required information system requirements will be 
provided by the ERP system. 
 
ICT Governance 
-------------- 
¶8. Recognizing the need for central management, application 
of common standards and system-wide coordination of the 
Organization,s ICT systems and related information 
management processes and capabilities, the GA decided to 
place the Office of Information and Communications Technology 
(OICT), headed by the Chief Information Technology Office at 
the A-SYG level, in the Executive Office of the SYG.  The 
governance structure reflects an appropriate division of 
labor - with management of the centralized ICT strategy 
residing in the OICT and day-to-day management of critical 
communication systems being retained by the Department of 
Field Support (DFS). 
 
CRM and ECM Enterprise Systems 
------------------------------ 
¶9.  The GA also continued implementation of these important 
complementary systems.  The Customer Relationship Management 
(CRM) system addresses the detailed processes involved in the 
provision of specific services to specific staff members. 
The Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system addresses 
information assets of a substantive nature and is applied in 
the following priority areas: the Official Documents System 
(ODS), the UN internet site, and in the peacekeeping 
reporting process. 
 
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity 
----------------------------------------- 
¶10.  Valencia - the GA approved the establishment of a 
secondary active telecommunications facility in Valencia, 
Spain to ensure that communications systems in peacekeeping 
missions, currently managed at the UN Logistics Base (UNLB) 
in Brindisi, Italy, will continue to operate in the event of 
a catastrophic incident. 
 
¶11.  Secondary (back-up) data center for UN Headquarters - 
following the Secretariat's mishandling of its plan (as 
presented in A/62/477) for establishing a secondary data 
facility in the borough of Queens in New York City, the GA 
called on the Secretariat to present a revised plan to the 
Fifth Committee at its March 2009 session.  Time is of the 
essence.  The Secretariat must have, at minimum, temporary 
backup systems in place by the third quarter of 2009 to 
ensure that the Secretariat's core information systems will 
continue to operate during the move of the Secretariat's 
primary data center to the new data center under the North 
Lawn at UN Headquarters during the CMP construction period. 
A delay in vacating the primary data center could cost the 
CMP over $11 million per month. 
 
Knowledge Management 
-------------------- 
¶12.  The Secretariat's "knowledge management" initiatives 
will improve the organization, accessibility and usability of 
the vast amount of information that crosses staff members 
desks each day and should prove to be particularly useful in 
gathering, retaining and sharing the institutional knowledge 
of retiring staff members. 
Rice