Эти усилия, несомненно, капля в море по сравнению с величиной общих глобальных мероприятий ЮНИСЕФ в предоставлении столь необходимой помощи детям и женщинам во многих чрезвычайных ситуациях. Тем не менее, это дух любви и заботы о других, о которой говорится в нашей миссии, и что подвигает сотрудников ЮНИСЕФ действительно быть приверженными организации.
Г-н Председатель, от имени всех сотрудников ЮНИСЕФ, благодарю за предоставленную нам возможность обратиться к вам. Позвольте мне заверить вас, что Глобальная ассоциация сотрудников ЮНИСЕФ поддерживает теплые рабочие отношения с высшим руководством на всех уровнях и стремится развивать культуру справедливого и прозрачного взаимодействия, что позволяет нам озвучивать голоса сотрудников в духе сотрудничества и партнерства.
Мы с нетерпением ждем ваших отзывов и комментариев.
Спасибо за Ваше внимание.
Statement of Scholastica Madowo
Chairperson, Global Staff Association
Annual session of the UNICEF Executive Board
16 June 2016
Mr. President, Members of the Executive Board, Executive Director, colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure, Mr. President, to address you today on behalf of all UNICEF staff. First, let me take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election. UNICEF staff welcome your leadership. As the Chair of the Global Staff Association, I look forward to a mutually beneficial collaboration with the Bureau and the entire Executive Board membership.
To begin my speech, I would like to take stock of where we stand in the efforts made to address the issues raised at the Annual Session of the Executive Board meeting last year.
First, addressing issues raised in the Global Staff Survey (GSS) held in the autumn of 2014.
The Global Management Team was tasked with overseeing the implementation of the areas of weakness in their respective Regions and Divisions. Since then, a number of offices have gone ahead and conducted individual monkey surveys. These have had higher response rates and have helped identify current issues affecting staff in those offices. The results of these surveys have complemented those of the main global staff survey and have enabled the design of responses to ad-dress the issues raised. This exercise is ongoing and being done in partnership with the Staff Associations. In terms of the next steps, rather than hold another survey in 2016 as proposed last year, the Global Staff Association is in agreement with management that more effort be put, instead, into addressing the issues identified. I would also like to encourage management to continue to track and verify progress by the individual offices in this regard.
Secondly, implementing the Global Shared Services Centre (GSSC).
Last year, the location of the Global Shared Services Centre had not yet been chosen. I am happy to report that the Global Centre is now up and running in Budapest, Hungary and close to 80 per cent of staff have been recruited. The Global Staff Association wishes to express appreciation to all staff who worked tirelessly to ensure the success of this grand project.
In the first phase of implementation, many staff were deployed on mission assignment to help set up and test the systems. I would especially like to mention colleagues from the Latin America and the Caribbean Region (LACRO), who had extensive experience in the Southern Cone common services hub; colleagues in the Global Service Centre of the Divisions of Human Re-sources, and those of the Information Technology Solutions and Services (ITSS). Their technical expertise and experience was critical in the setting-up of systems in the Global Shared Services Centre project.
The feedback so far is that the systems are working well and the launch of the project has been a great success. As with any project of such magnitude, there are some teething problems. However, a robust system has been put in place to address the hitches as quickly as possible as they arise. As an organization, we are now learning the new way of doing business through an electronic log-in system, My Case. I plan to visit the GSSC office this summer.
The implementation of the GSSC resulted in the earmarking of 282 positions for abolishment. The Global Staff Association negotiated for a number of mitigation measures which were put in place to protect the affected staff. In the end, 142 staff members were absorbed within the organization, 2 others got positions with other United Nations agencies with the support of UNICEF, 61 retired, 29 separated and as at the end of last year, 48 were yet to be placed and every effort is still being made to support the remaining staff. While the mitigation measures were established specifically targeting staff affected by the Global Shared Services Centre exercise, these measures were extended to all staff who were on abolished posts as at 31st December 2015 irrespective of the rea-sons for abolishment. The Global Staff Association is happy with the outcome of the mitigation measures to protect staff on abolished posts and has requested management to adopt the measures as modus operandi in UNICEF.
The next issue is that of staff safety and security.
April 20th 2016 marked the first anniversary of the horrific attack on UNICEF staff in Garowe in Somalia which resulted in the deaths of 4 staff members and the injury of several others. This incident, and others in the past, demonstrate the vulnerability of staff serving in high-risk environments. The Executive Director (Mr. Tony Lake), and indeed the Secretary General (Mr. Ban Ki Moon), have continuously assured staff that every effort is and will be made to assure their safety and security, and we have no doubt that management is doing what it can to ensure this. We are happy to note that USD 5.36 million was allocated for in the 2016 budget for security investments in the field.
Related to staff security is conditions in which staff in emergency locations work. In 2014, a major review exercise was undertaken under the banner of Sustainable Humanitarian Action (SHA) initiative which resulted in the introduction of a number of special measures to improve the working environment of staff serving in high-risk duty stations. Following in the footsteps of the SHA initiative, the Global Staff Association jointly with the Division of Human Resources established an in-house committee that further reviewed the conditions of service of staff serving in emergency duty stations in the following clusters: safety and security; health and medical services; mental health and resilience; staff accommodation; and, mobility and other HR-related issues.
The report of this committee has been finalized and will be presented to management next week. Mr. Lake has promised to give serious consideration to the recommendations of the report. As Chair of the Global Staff Association, I have no doubt of this support. This is because, in addition to the special measures already introduced under the SHA I initiative that I just mentioned, there has been recent encouragement to national staff in high-risk locations to use flexible work arrangements under Special Emergency Com-pressed Time Off (SECTO). This will enable staff to earn extra days for rest. Under this arrangement, staff put in 9 weeks of work compressed within 8 weeks, thus earning one week for rest.
A lot more could still be done, especially for national staff who are not covered in the current compensation package. Two quick wins would be the introduction of Rest and Recuperation (R&R) and the harmonization of Danger Pay, both of which are under your jurisdiction. At this point, I would also like to mention the reality that the recent changes in the compensation package for International Professional staff has removed many entitlements for staff serving in high-risk duty stations. This has been foreseen as a disincentive to staff who risk their lives to serve in the highly volatile duty stations. I will get back this to this issue later in my speech.
While still on the issue of staff safety of security, I reiterated last year the moral obligation that UNICEF has to protect its staff in fragile contexts, and that care must be taken to balance the risk of staff lives and well-being with the criticality of the mission. To this end, I am pleased to note that the High Level Committee on Management (HLCM) at its 31st Session held in March 2016 submitted a report of a Working Group on Reconciling Duty of Care for UN Personnel While Operating in High Risk Environments. As a start, the Working Group agreed to adopt the definition of Duty of Care as follows: A non-waivable duty on the part of the organizations to mitigate or otherwise address foreseeable risks that may harm or injure its personnel and their eligible family members. The Working Group recommended the establishment of a new coordinating mechanism, a UN Duty of Care Coordination Committee, to address policy and implementation gaps identified in the report, and UNICEF has been appointed to be the secretariat of this Committee.
Linked to this is the issue of staff rotation and mobility. Last year, a rotation and mobility policy document was drafted, and was to be implemented during 2016. I am pleased to report that the policy was finalized and its implementation is well underway, with a total of 233 positions earmarked for rotation. The first phase targets staff members who completed their tours of duty as of 30th December 2014 in family duty stations and 30th June 2015 for those in high-risk non-family duty stations.
The initiative is expected to offer much needed relief to colleagues who have been in hardship duty locations for long periods by facilitating reunification with families in family duty stations. However, we are also aware that many staff are anxious about moving from family duty stations to non-family duty stations. To this latter group, assurance has been given that the rotation and mobility exercise will be managed in a fair and transparent manner with the aim of building an agile workforce that can be deployed in both regular development and emergency contexts. Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that there will be cases that may require deferment or exemptions. A Special Constraints Panel has been established to review such requests and the Global Staff Association sits on this Panel.
|
Из за большого объема этот материал размещен на нескольких страницах:
1 2 3 4 |
