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STU Addendum to document 212 EX/5.III.D

STU/69th Council/21/026
15 October 2021

212 EX/5 : Follow-up to decisions and resolutions adopted
by the Executive Board and the General Conference at their previous sessions

Part III – Management issues

D. UNESCO’s Strategic Transformation

COMMENTS BY THE UNESCO STAFF UNION (STU)

Under Pillar 2 of the Strategic Transformation, STU agrees that the Organization increased its overall operational effectiveness and was capable of providing an effective response to the pandemic thanks to effective remote working arrangements.

However, STU would like to recall that the implementation of the new mobility policy in 2019 failed to respond to the needs of both Member States and the Organization’s workforce. The implementation of the second cycle under this policy is therefore being closely monitored and STU hopes it will comply with IOS recommendations. Furthermore, STU drew the attention of the Administration to the low-quality moving services that are currently being contracted by the Organization to move its staff. This should be quickly rectified so that colleagues moving next year can do so with moving services that meet the quality standards expected from an international organization and without having to cover moving expenses with their own savings.

Concerning the results of Pillar 3 of the Strategic transformation, and its ambitious medium-term strategy which “places great emphasis on UNESCO´s role as a hub for data production, collection and analysis”, STU would like to draw your attention to the situation of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). The difficult working conditions are clearly indicated in the results of the 2021 UNESCO Global Staff Survey. It’s also reflected in the rapidly decreasing number of personnel which constitute the most valuable asset of the organization. Meanwhile, we can observe a drastic rise in the use of consultants without consolidating the new knowledge and competencies in-house. The current modus-operandi with its short-term vision constitutes a clear risk to the survival of UIS and represents a direct risk to the existing mentioned strategy. We ask one more time that measures are taken to address the issues raised at UIS in its own UIS staff surveys.

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