DIRECTOR-GENERAL ANNOUNCES SAVINGS AT UNITED NATIONS GENEVA OFFICE
Press Release
ORG/1224
DIRECTOR-GENERAL ANNOUNCES SAVINGS AT UNITED NATIONS GENEVA OFFICE
19960919 GENEVA, 16 September (UN Information Service) -- The United Nations Office at Geneva is shedding 200 posts as its contribution to the major streamlining and cost-cutting measures underway throughout the United Nations Secretariat, Director-General Vladimir Petrovsky announced today. He said the Office's reform efforts involved structural and procedural changes aimed at simplification and avoiding or eliminating duplication. They would also involve consolidating activities to ensure better delivery of services in response to the increasing demands by Member States.The cost-cutting programmes announced earlier this year by the Secretary-General total $154 million for the 1996-1997 programme budget. Geneva's share of that amounts to $35.5 million, to be borne by the departments administered by the Office or located in Geneva. Those include the Centre for Human Rights, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and a number of jointly financed activities.
Around 65 per cent of the United Nations overall budget is spent on staff costs. Thus, $29 million of the savings at Geneva will come from staff reductions, through a freeze on recruitment, normal departures and the implementation of early retirement, separation and redeployment programmes. By the end of 1997, there should be around 1,945 posts at the Geneva Office, down more than 9 per cent from the current 2,147 posts.
Mr. Petrovsky cited the constructive role of United Nations staff representatives in the difficult down-sizing operation, noting the close consultations with the staff through the round-table process during the Organization's recurrent financial crises. The United Nations continued to place the highest importance on staff development, with intensive people-management training for senior officials and an improved Performance Appraisal System for all staff, based on individual work plans and performance indicators.
In some cases, long-term savings came from investing money in technology. Earlier this year, the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) spent half a million dollars for electronic devices to be used by the Security
and Safety Section, in order to achieve savings of $1.2 million during the current biennium.
Tighter control over the production and distribution of documents is paying off. Staff are being directed to make greater use of e-mail and the optical disk system to access documents, permanent missions are encouraged to use new technologies to obtain official documents, and address lists are being updated and reduced. The combined effect will be a 10 per cent reduction in the volume of documentation for 1996 compared to 1995. Maintaining this trend through 1997 will produce a cost saving of $5.4 million for the biennium.
Figures for the first seven months of 1996 show that the programme is on target, with 176 million pages printed and distributed at the Geneva Office, compared to 208 million pages for the period from January to July last year. There have also been similar reductions in the numbers of documents sent for translation.
Mr. Petrovsky thanked Member States for their support for the reform process at Geneva. In particular, he appreciated the direct contributions from some Member States for the much-needed renovation of conference rooms and other parts of the building. Those improvements had helped the Office save more than $1 million.
The Director-General emphasized that the commitment to cut costs would continue. However, there were limits to the amount that could be saved without compromising the quality of service provided at the Palais des Nations. That site is Europe's major centre for conference diplomacy, hosting an average of 15 intergovernmental, technical or expert meetings each working day.
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