(2011) Civilian capacity in the aftermath of conflict: independent report of the Senior Advisory Group (A/65/747-S/2011/85)

United Nations A/65/747–S/2011/85 General Assembly Security Council Distr.: General 22 February 2011 Original: English 11-24080 (E) 280211 *1124080* General Assembly Sixty-fifth session Agenda item 120 Strengthening of the United Nations system Security Council Sixty-sixth year Identical letters dated 18 February 2011 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council I have the honour to transmit, for your consideration, the report of the independent review on civilian capacity in the aftermath of conflict, conducted by my Senior Advisory Group led by Jean-Marie Guéhenno, former Under-Secretary- General for Peacekeeping Operations, with the participation of experts drawn from the membership of the United Nations, the United Nations system and civil society. As part of my commitment to strengthening international support for post- conflict countries, I launched this independent analysis of the challenges facing the international community in responding to the needs of post-conflict societies. The attached report puts forward a number of useful recommendations, including to the United Nations, aimed at strengthening national ownership, broadening and deepening the pool of international civilian capacity, and improving the appropriateness, timeliness and effectiveness of our support. I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation to Mr. Guéhenno and the other members of the Senior Advisory Group for this important contribution. The recommendations contained in this report are congruent with my broader reform efforts to create a more open and responsive United Nations working in closer partnerships with Member States. The report, with its emphasis on the need to do more within existing resources and make better use of systems already in place, is also in line with my continuing drive to build a more accountable, efficient and effective United Nations. I, therefore, welcome the direction articulated by this review, and encourage Member States to join me in supporting it. I should be grateful if the attached report could be brought to the attention of the Member States. In order to facilitate informed decision-making and coordinated action in follow-up to this report, I decided to set up a Steering Group composed of the heads of the relevant United Nations entities and designated Susana Malcorra, my Under- Secretary-General for Field Support, to lead it on my behalf. (Signed) BAN Ki-moon A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 2 Letter dated 31 January 2011 from the Chair of the Senior Advisory Group to the Secretary-General It has been a privilege to chair the Senior Advisory Group which you appointed to conduct the attached review of civilian capacity and which was composed as follows: Rubem Cesar Fernandes, Brazil, Executive Director, Viva Rio Ameerah Haq, Bangladesh, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Timor-Leste Bruce Jones, United States of America, Director of the New York University Center on International Cooperation Ambassador Marjon V. Kamara, Liberia, Permanent Representative of Liberia to the United Nations Carlos Lopes, Guinea-Bissau, Executive Director of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research Catherine Pollard, Guyana, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management Michael von der Schulenburg, Germany, Executive Representative of the Secretary- General for the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone Ambassador Mitra Vasisht, India, Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs (retired) Their diversity of experience and background has been indispensable. The Group would like to thank you, the States Members of the United Nations and the regional organizations for their ready engagement with our work. We extend our special thanks to the African Union for hosting a consultation in Addis Ababa, and to Commissioner Lamamra and his team for their efforts and their useful reflections. We also thank all those who have shared their stories with us — the people of conflict-affected States; our colleagues working in the field with communities emerging from conflict, including those from civil society; hundreds of colleagues from across the United Nations system at all levels; and scholars. Our special thanks go to those who hosted field research. Throughout many hundreds of consultations, people were unstintingly generous with their time and honest about what they believe needs to change. Many of us on the Advisory Group were particularly impressed by the passion and vision of our younger colleagues. From Liberia to Sierra Leone, from the Sudan to Timor-Leste, we found an intelligence and commitment among young people that reminds us that the quest for peace is still a calling that inspires. Among these many voices, we heard a few messages again and again: First, the journey from war to sustainable peace is not possible in the absence of stronger civilian capacity. Without this capacity, there may be breaks in the fighting, but resilient institutions will not take root and the risk of renewed violence will remain. A/65/747 S/2011/85 3 11-24080 Second, almost every conflict-affected country, however devastated, has some of the needed capacities for peace, which need to be protected and nurtured. Third, the international response to conflict is often supply-driven, with international actors focusing on what they can provide, rather than listening to the real needs of those they serve. Fourth, the United Nations needs to be more responsive, more flexible, and more cost-effective. The agencies, funds and programmes are ahead of the Secretariat in many areas, but there is plenty of room for improvement across the system. These are serious concerns, but we believe that they can be addressed. We have made proposals within a framework we call OPEN, that seeks to enable national ownership; to work in global partnership; to deliver with expertise, and to be nimble in the face of often very turbulent transitions. Our proposals seek: First, to strengthen national ownership of peace processes, by supporting core government functions, nurturing national capacities and improving the economic impact of international interventions. Second, to encourage and enable the United Nations to look beyond its own staff and to draw on the full range of global capacities, working closely with Member States and civil society through a new mechanism for civilian partnerships. Third, to leverage the success of the cluster system — while learning from its limitations — to provide clarity on the core capacities of the United Nations, and stronger accountability to Member States. Fourth, to use available resources more effectively and efficiently and thus to increase the United Nations responsiveness to changing circumstances in the field. The Senior Advisory Group envisions a United Nations in tune with the needs of conflict-affected communities and open to working with partners; an Organization that values results, not processes; that promotes a culture where people are valued and risks can be taken; and whose management systems support this vision. To achieve this, the United Nations will need to rebalance the relationship between the Secretariat and the Member States. Theirs must be a partnership based on mutual trust. Without this fundamental cultural shift, the goals of our review — to strengthen the civilian capacities that are the foundation of lasting peace — will remain elusive. We would like to thank the United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office for hosting this project, and the team which has ably assisted our efforts. (Signed) Jean-Marie Guéhenno Chair, Senior Advisory Group A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 4 Civilian capacity in the aftermath of conflict Independent report of the Senior Advisory Group Contents Page Summary ..................................................................... 5 I. Introduction ................................................................... 10 II. Ownership .................................................................... 10 A. Nurturing national capacities................................................. 11 B. Core government functions.................................................. 12 C. Recommendations: Enabling national ownership................................. 12 III. Partnership .................................................................... 14 Recommendations: Working in a global partnership .................................. 16 IV. Expertise ..................................................................... 19 A. Core capacities............................................................ 20 B. Accountability and leadership................................................ 23 C. Recommendations: Delivering with expertise ................................... 24 V. Nimbleness .................................................................... 26 Recommendations: Nimble in the face of change ..................................... 30 VI. Conclusions ................................................................... 32 Annexes I. Human resources at the United Nations ............................................. 33 II. Recommendations of the Senior Advisory Group ..................................... 39 A/65/747 S/2011/85 5 11-24080 Summary As communities emerge from conflict, they often face a critical shortage of capacities needed to secure a sustainable peace — the core capacities to run a government, to re-establish institutions of justice, to reintegrate demobilizing fighters, to revitalize the economy, to restore basic health and education, and many more. The United Nations has seen success in humanitarian operations and peacekeeping, built on a strong partnership with Member States. But the international community has had less success in supporting and enabling the national capacities that are essential for an enduring peace. Faced with expanded civilian mandates in a growing number of crises, the United Nations struggles both to rapidly deploy the range of expertise required and to transfer skills and knowledge to national actors. This has increased the risk of relapse into conflict. In some cases, the needed capacities are just not available. It is difficult, for example, to find people who can rebuild a judicial system. Conflict may have weakened capacities at home and the international market has not been able to provide enough talented people with the right skills, language and cultural fluency who can deploy at short notice and will stay long enough to be effective. Often, however, there is more national capacity than is at first apparent. Even countries ravaged by conflict have latent capacities that must be protected and nurtured. And despite some persistent gaps, there is more deployable capacity in the international system than has been fully used. Diasporas offer one potential reservoir. The emergence of confident new economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America has also created an opportunity to deploy people who have the right professional skills, backgrounds and experience. In addition, many donor countries have made considerable investments in developing pools of highly specialized capacities that can be difficult to find elsewhere. The United Nations can do much by itself, but there is also much that it cannot and should not do. Where national capacity does exist, the United Nations needs better systems to identify and support it. Where there are real gaps in civilian capacity, it must focus on how to develop needed capacities. The international community needs a constant mapping of what the gaps are, long-term commitments to filling those gaps and enough coherence to accomplish this without undue overlap or confusion. Where additional capacity is needed from the international community, better ways must be found of finding and deploying that talent. To do so, the United Nations needs to find a new way of working — future missions may have to be leaner in terms of civilian staff and more flexible. In discussing how the United Nations might accomplish this, the Senior Advisory Group uses a framework it calls “OPEN”, which refers to four key principles — ownership, partnership, expertise and nimbleness. For each of these areas, the Group identifies approaches and makes specific recommendations, some of which are highlighted below. All of the recommendations are set out in annex II. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 6 Ownership Effective support for national efforts requires the international community to listen to fragile and conflict-affected States and to align international assistance with nationally identified needs and priorities. The Group therefore stresses the primacy of national capacities and national ownership. As the Peacebuilding Commission has emphasized, unless conflict-affected communities can develop their own abilities to cope with crisis and change, international assistance will not succeed. A primary task of the international response is to identify, protect, nurture and support national capacities. This includes ensuring a stronger role for women, whose active participation is essential for lasting peace. International actors need to take more care not to exacerbate “brain drain”, and to limit the economic distortions that are often an unintended consequence of international interventions. In particular, international actors should be aware of the possible negative impact of large-scale deployments of international civilians on local capacity. More positively, the international community should ensure that, to the extent possible, it is supporting host institutions from within. In addition, international interventions can act as a valuable economic and capacity stimulus: whether information and analysis or goods and services are needed, international actors can strengthen both the economy and national capacities by sourcing their requirements locally. The recommendations under ownership include: Primacy of national capacity. The principle that international capacity is the mechanism of last resort should be adopted by Member States, the World Bank and the United Nations. Whenever feasible, international capacities should be co-located within national institutions. Wage principles should be revised to prevent brain drain. Support to core government functions. The international community should resource rapid support to aid coordination, public financial management and policy management, as these are essential for national ownership. Procurement and economic impact. United Nations procurement procedures should be adjusted to enable more local procurement, thus supporting local economic recovery and strengthening private sector capacity. Partnership Much of the capacity needed in countries emerging from conflict is best found outside the United Nations — either in the affected countries themselves or elsewhere. This is particularly true of specialist capacities that may be needed for relatively short periods of time. These niche skills can be found in Member States — in government, in civil society and in the private sector — and it makes little sense to bring in these experts as career-track United Nations civil servants. Instead, the United Nations needs to be able to work more flexibly and predictably with a range of partners to find, recruit and deploy personnel with the right skills and experience. Rather than relying only on in-house capacity, the United Nations will better serve conflict-affected countries by acting as a platform for qualified expertise. The United Nations agencies, funds and programmes have shown that this can be an effective approach. A/65/747 S/2011/85 7 11-24080 If the United Nations is to rely more heavily on external partners for niche skills, however, it will need an easy process to access these capacities at short notice in response to demand. It will also need to be able to ensure minimum interoperability between partners, and standards. The recommendations under partnership include: Building a mechanism for partnerships. The United Nations should establish a Civilian Partnerships Cell to offer external providers of capacity a simple and effective mechanism for cooperation. This cell would, inter alia, establish long-term relationships and legal/administrative arrangements with capacity providers, to enable rapid deployment. Better systems for deployment of partners. The United Nations should make more use of the experts on mission arrangement to deploy partners. The Group proposes creating civilian support packages, adapting the successful model used by the United Nations in partnership with Member States to secure military capacity. These mechanisms have worked well in other contexts, and can be important vehicles for expanding South-South cooperation. Better systems and standards of training. The United Nations should promote cooperation among international actors through the development of training standards and quality certification of training programmes for civilian deployment in United Nations contexts. Expertise The United Nations has some of the core capacities needed in the aftermath of conflict, but these capacities are uneven and there is confusion as to who does what. This leads to duplication and to unfilled capacity gaps that jeopardize the United Nations ability to support conflict-affected States. These gaps are: (a) In the area of basic safety and security: disarmament, demobilization and reintegration; police; and security sector reform and governance; (b) In the area of justice: corrections; criminal justice; and judicial and legal reform; (c) In the area of inclusive political processes: political party development; and public information; (d) In the area of core government functionality: aid coordination; legislative branch; and public financial management; (e) In the area of economic revitalization: employment generation; natural resource management; and private sector development. The humanitarian system has successfully addressed capacity gaps through the use of the cluster approach and through building up partnerships with external sources of capacity. For those gaps identified in the report, there is currently no process for the United Nations to clarify the nature of the gaps and work with partners to fill its needs. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 8 The Secretariat faces additional challenges. Whereas the agencies, funds and programmes have adapted to operations in the field, the same is not always true of the Secretariat. Systems of recruitment that are designed for Headquarters personnel falter in the face of large, time-sensitive field operations. Where rapid deployment of the right personnel affects the ability to implement mandates, the Secretariat just can’t deliver. A separate annex to this report (annex I) is devoted to the specific measures that might be taken to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations to find, recruit and deploy the right people at the right time. To respect the principle of national ownership, United Nations leaders in the field need to listen better and respond to the needs of conflict-affected communities. To do so, they require better training, and need to work more closely with United Nations country teams, which often have long experience in the country or region. With this responsibility comes a commensurate need for stronger accountability mechanisms. The recommendations under expertise include: Core capacities. The cluster approach used by the humanitarian community has helped to deliver capacities more reliably and promptly. The Group proposes extending the cluster model into other areas of post-conflict work, with appropriate modifications, and suggests cluster leads based on current capacities. The Group suggests the expansion of the existing model of global service providers, so that United Nations actors with capacity can provide assistance in response to needs, across the whole United Nations system. Accountability and leadership. The Group proposes measures to improve accountability, particularly with respect to implementation and gender equality. It is recommended that the United Nations adopt a results-based audit culture that seeks to enable and improve implementation, rather than just punish administrative non-compliance. The Group also recommends strengthening the quality and scope of training for senior leaders. Human resources. The Group recommends the creation of a career path that enables the United Nations to retain talented staff who are willing to serve in the field. A number of measures are specified, including better rotation and mobility programmes that are essential for staff retention and to keep service in difficult duty stations attractive. Also proposed is a corporate emergency model to ensure that the Organization can effectively respond to crises. Nimbleness If the United Nations is to leave behind the minimum capacities for peace, it will have to be more nimble. Things change quickly as a community moves from war to peace, and the international actors present must be able to adjust accordingly. Yet the system is risk-averse and fragmented. This limits its ability to be responsive. In addition, the United Nations is weighed down by its own conceptual baggage — conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, early peacebuilding, peacebuilding, early recovery, recovery, and transition. In a world where conflict is chronic and recurrent, these distinctions often confuse rather than clarify. They create stovepipes that make it harder for the United Nations to listen to the needs of conflict-affected communities, and to design its response accordingly, choosing the right mix of instruments at the right time. A/65/747 S/2011/85 9 11-24080 The Group believes that a more flexible system will also be more efficient. Leaders in the field, who are closest to needs, must be able to draw on a menu of resources and capacities — within mission structures, the United Nations country team and beyond — to allocate resources based on comparative advantage. The recommendations under nimbleness include: Direct capacity towards needs. United Nations leaders in the field need to be able to respond flexibly to change. The Group proposes that, in mission contexts, they should be authorized to reallocate up to 20 per cent of resources in the mission budget line for civilian personnel, with ex post facto justification (equivalent on average to less than 5 per cent of the total budget of a peacekeeping operation). Use the principle of comparative advantage. Where capacities outside a mission, whether in the agencies, funds and programmes or beyond, have a comparative advantage in implementing a task mandated by the Security Council, the Head of Mission should be able to direct funds to that actor. Whenever feasible, local capacities should be used. Flexibility for missions to undertake programmatic tasks. Where civilian capacities within a mission have a clear comparative advantage in implementing a mandated task, heads of mission should be able to provide — for a limited time — the necessary programmatic funds from assessed contributions. This is essential to deliver meaningful peace dividends in the early window of opportunity. The Group urges the General Assembly, building on existing successful examples, to expand this initiative. Harmonize overheads. The United Nations should reduce the rate of overhead it charges for voluntary contributions to mission trust funds from 13 per cent to 7 per cent. Faster funding for agencies, funds and programmes. The Working Capital Finance model used by the World Food Programme should be adopted more broadly by the United Nations, adapted to each entity’s needs. Effective use of loans against reserves can enable significantly faster delivery in the aftermath of conflict. * * * In conclusion, stronger civilian capacity alone cannot prevent a relapse into conflict. Conflict-affected countries need effective national political processes, strong institutions and economic development to build a durable peace. Supporting these processes with responsive civilian capacities is a shared responsibility. Building these capacities requires a United Nations that is more open, working in stronger partnership with the international community. These, together, can help conflict-affected communities to build the stability and prosperity they seek. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 10 I. Introduction 1. Over the past two decades the United Nations has evolved into the principal instrument for the management of armed conflict. Notwithstanding the changing nature of conflict — including a marked increase in subnational violence and growing transnational risks such as organized crime — the demand for the United Nations to act continues unabated. In addition, there are increasing requests for the United Nations services in contexts outside peacekeeping operations, particularly for assistance with security sector issues, and a demand for better preventive action. 2. The United Nations will have to adapt to meet these challenges, to transform itself into an organization that responds more effectively to the increasingly varied demands and expectations it faces. The analysis and recommendations set out in the present report are designed to help it do so. 3. The recommendations focus on the immediate aftermath of conflict. The United Nations and Member States often struggle to deliver in this vital window of opportunity when rapid, effective and efficient action can establish a platform for future stability and prosperity. Yet, since today’s conflicts are often protracted and recurrent, the recommendations are designed to be applicable throughout the conflict cycle where possible. II. Ownership 4. Resilience — the ability to cope with shocks and crises — is a product of national capacities. The international community, after conflict, should therefore support and enable national capacities as much as possible. Yet fragile and conflict- affected States, which remain the furthest from achieving the Millennium Development Goals, have experienced international interventions that can overwhelm fragile national capacities when they most need support. They have issued a call for an evolution of the international response to conflict. 1 5. The Secretary-General has recognized that the United Nations must do better, observing that, “time and again, we have failed to catalyse a response that delivers immediate, tangible results on the ground. Often, it has taken many months before essential government functions resume or basic services are available. In some cases, it has taken several years before the international community has aligned its efforts behind a common strategic vision. Capacities and resources have been insufficient to meet urgent demands on the ground.” 2 6. The g7+, 3 a group of countries and regions that have experienced conflict, has noted that “aid delivery, interventions and programs instigated by international actors are often inapplicable, unsustainable and incompatible with our in-country national agendas … they are often not conducive to addressing the immediate or __________________ 1 For detailed data, see “Fragile Situations, Sturdy Commitments: The Special Challenges of MDG Achievement in Conflict-Affected Countries”; available from http://content.undp.org/ go/cms-service/stream/asset/;jsessionid=awuaTaTb4sM9?asset_id=2224163. 2 A/63/881-S/2009/304, para. 4. 3 The members of the g7+ are Afghanistan, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Nepal, Solomon Islands, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Timor-Leste. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11 11-24080 long-term needs of our countries and regions”. The g7+ has challenged the global community and international actors “to reform, re-invent and commit to a new paradigm of international engagement in fragile and conflict-affected countries”, noting that “external mandates and ideas can no longer be imposed on our countries or regions and our peoples”. 4 7. These arguments are supported by field research and discussions with host Governments and practitioners. The Senior Advisory Group found two primary areas of weakness: (a) A failure to identify, nurture and leverage national capacities; (b) Insufficient focus on the rapid restoration of core government functions. A. Nurturing national capacities 8. The Group observed five ways in which international interventions could better leverage and preserve national capacities: (a) Primacy of national capacity. International actors do not use national actors as their primary source of capacity. The use of international capacity should be a last resort, to encourage creative ways of working with fledgling national capacities, whether State or private sector. Too many deployed capacities reside physically and intellectually within international structures, rather than inside the local institutions they are mandated to support. (b) Reducing “brain drain”. The international community attracts talent away from the institutions it is there to support, depriving them of much-needed capacity. The United Nations wage scale for national staff, while often lower than that of bilateral actors and the private sector, is higher than national government scales. (c) Women as a priority. The lack of recognition of the capacities of women continues to bedevil the international response. Women are a significant part of the basic economic engine that drives growth, and are critical to restoring the social fabric, yet their needs continue to be marginalized and their capacities underused. (d) Economic impact. Local firms may be able to provide goods and services to international partners, but are often effectively excluded by procurement processes. 5 The opportunity to inject capital into the economy, and help to develop the capacities that will drive economic growth, is therefore wasted. (e) Capacity development. The Group noted a general lack of guidance and doctrine, of assessment standards, even of basic terminology and principles for enabling national capacities in conflict-affected communities. Clear and practical guidance is needed on how better to enable national capacities at the individual, institutional and societal levels. __________________ 4 Statement of the g7+ Heads of State, 20 September 2010; available from www.oecd.org/ dataoecd/2/47/46108633.pdf. 5 See Department of Peacekeeping Operations, “Economic Impact of Peacekeeping”, 2006. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 12 9. The Senior Advisory Group therefore makes six recommendations, recommendations 1 to 6 below, to better nurture and leverage national capacities. These apply to the United Nations and to any other actor working with conflict-affected communities, including the Peacebuilding Commission. B. Core government functions 10. With regard to core government functions, the Senior Advisory Group sees two areas requiring particular attention: (a) Structures for policy management and prioritization. Determining and setting priorities is the responsibility of national leadership. Translating these priorities into policy requires a capable and resourced policy function in national Governments. Current assistance in this area is sporadic and inadequately prioritized. Providing multi-year support to the creation of the necessary structures, whether Cabinet offices, policy units or ministries of finance and planning, should be a priority. (b) Aid coordination and public financial management. In war-ravaged economies, the external budget — or international aid — often far exceeds the national budget. The ability to coordinate and align international aid with national priorities is essential, as is the ability to oversee international capacity development efforts. The current international system does not have clearly defined capacities and funding that can rapidly support and enable these functions. 11. While there is more work to be done in helping to restore core government functions, these two areas are the most critical for ensuring national ownership. 12. The Senior Advisory Group therefore makes a recommendation, recommendation 7 below, to improve the quality of support to core government functions through the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank. C. Recommendations: Enabling national ownership 13. The recommendations of the Senior Advisory Group are the following: Recommendation 1 Prioritize national capacities The principle that international capacity is the mechanism of last resort should be explicitly adopted by Member States, the World Bank and the United Nations for their interventions in conflict-affected States. Wherever possible, national actors and institutions should be the primary source of capacity for substantive and non-substantive tasks alike. Recommendation 2 Revise wages to preserve national capacities The Group recommends that the General Assembly review the wage principles applicable for locally recruited United Nations staff. Those principles, developed in 1949, were not designed to nurture national capacities in conflict-affected States. A/65/747 S/2011/85 13 11-24080 Recommendation 3 Co-locate international capacities with national institutions International personnel should be physically co-located within national institutions, as long as their safety and security can be ensured. This principle should be adopted by all international actors in conflict-affected States. For the United Nations, exceptions to this policy should have to be justified. Recommendation 4 Prioritize women’s needs and use their capacities (a) Women’s needs must feature more prominently in international planning processes. UN-Women should ensure that United Nations planning processes have access to capacities to adequately address gender issues, and should provide advice to Member States seeking to improve their response. (b) Security for women is critical to promoting social and economic recovery. The Group supports the proposed creation of a 20 per cent quota for women in all United Nations police deployments by 2014. Member States are urged to ensure that this goal is met, including through specialized recruitment initiatives. Recommendation 5 Design procurement for local economic impact United Nations procurement rules should be revised so that they prioritize national capacities and leverage local expertise and comparative advantage where possible. The Group encourages Member States to adopt similar measures. An annual external evaluation should be required of all major peacekeeping operations and field-based special political missions to develop an economic footprint that is as supportive as possible of national capacities. Recommendation 6 Develop shared guidance on enabling national capacity The Group urges the United Nations, the World Bank, the Working Group on Capacity Development of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding and other relevant actors to work together to provide clear guidance on how best to develop individual, institutional and societal capacities to build a more resilient society. This should include guidance on how national actors can exercise oversight over international technical assistance, how to measure progress, and how to identify good practice. Recommendation 7 Support the United Nations Developme nt Programme and the World Bank work on core government functionality The international community must be able to support Governments emerging from conflict in building the core structures needed for (a) policy management and prioritization; and (b) aid coordination and public financial management. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) needs resources and capacity to support these efforts, but it cannot do this alone. The World Bank has important capacities in these areas, and the Group urges greater cooperation between the two entities. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 14 III. Partnership 14. Many of the civilian capacities most needed by conflict-affected communities are not to be found within the United Nations. In those cases, the United Nations will serve conflict-affected communities better by drawing on capacities beyond the United Nations, in its Member States and in civil society. 15. Yet the United Nations too often relies on its own personnel to perform all its tasks, particularly in larger Security Council-mandated missions, even when those tasks do not fall within the usual competences of its staff. As is explained in greater detail below and in annex I, the Secretariat finds it enormously difficult to recruit and deploy specialized staff in a timely fashion. 16. Beyond the United Nations, in countries with recent experience of transition, institutional development or transformation, exists a global pool of broader capacities of considerable potential. Similarly, in some Member States there are specialized technical skills that are in demand in conflict-affected countries. This has been seen in Brazilian waste management and community violence reduction programmes in Haiti, South African electoral and mediation expertise in Burundi, and many other cases. 17. Many agencies, funds and programmes have effective partnerships with external capacity sources. These programmes, in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme and others, have shown that these relationships can deliver, rapidly, in the aftermath of crisis. 18. One example is the partnership between the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and the Protection Cluster Working Group and the Camp Coordination and Camp Management Cluster Working Group. The Danish Refugee Council maintains a roster of 270 experts for rapid and in-kind deployment. An independent evaluation found that this partnership, and the use of the cluster approach more broadly, marked a shift in the nature of partnerships between the United Nations and non-governmental organizations from a collateral level to non-governmental organizations having become more fully engaged. “The DRC Stand-by Roster has managed to exceed surge capacity … [and] United Nations partners generally find that the diversity of [its] members (in terms of nationalities, language and professional skills) is a strength, provides real added value”. 6 19. These partnerships often use the arrangement of experts on mission to facilitate deployment, as does the United Nations police. This arrangement has delivered successful results and the Group encourages its wider use. It would lead to missions with fewer international civilian staff members, reducing costs and adding flexibility. 20. The Secretariat, however, often does not maintain the partnerships needed to make the model work. Indeed, there is considerable frustration with the ad hoc nature of partnerships with the Secretariat. Roster holders and Member States, in the South and the North, told us they wanted to work with the United Nations but could not find a way to do so. There is no easy point of contact — either to establish how __________________ 6 “External Evaluation of the DRC’s Stand-by Roster”, COWI, Belgium; available from www.drc.dk/fileadmin/uploads/pdf/IA_PDF/relief_work/DRC%20Stand-by%20Roster%20 Evaluation%202009.pdf. A/65/747 S/2011/85 15 11-24080 the capacities of potential partners correspond to immediate needs, or to build a relationship so that they can invest in meeting longer-term needs. Willing, regular providers of capacity are unable to secure standardized legal agreements and must renegotiate, each time, the terms and conditions of deployment. 21. Likewise, heads of mission have spoken of the implausibility of each United Nations field presence making its own set of contacts with the vast array of capacities available through Member States, civil society and regional and subregional organizations. All these parties — Member States, roster holders, and field leaders — have called for a mechanism that manages their administrative relationship with the United Nations — a “docking mechanism” that makes it simple to establish and operate successful partnerships. 22. In some circumstances, there has been a demand for teams of civilian experts who can work together as a unit, either in support of national capacities or to perform critical tasks. In this case, the Secretariat has a robust administrative mechanism, used to partner with Member States. Following a specific request for support, Member States provide military or police personnel to the United Nations and are reimbursed at a standard rate, agreed in a letter of assist. This mechanism could be extended to provide teams of civilians from Member States, regional organizations, or centres of excellence. 23. The Group notes that Member States from both North and South have invested considerable resources in establishing partnerships that have helped to generate the necessary civilian capacity to respond at times of crisis. For example, the Norwegian and European Union partnerships with the African Union have shown the potential of triangular cooperation, where northern funds and/or expertise collaborate with southern funds and/or expertise to support a third country, as have efforts such as the Cambodian/Timorese partnership on aid coordination funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The same is true of the cooperation between Ireland, Northern Ireland, Timor-Leste and Liberia on the role of women in peace and security. “Twinning” between southern institutions (such as the UNDP- facilitated pairing of the Kenyan central bank with its nascent Somali counterpart) or cities can foster valuable long-term relationships. 24. Another useful model is the Justice Rapid Response network. Justice Rapid Response is a multilateral standby facility offering criminal justice expertise, which has partners from the North and South in its management structure. It conducts training equally in the North and South and deploys a diverse group of experts — for example to support the prison investigation in Les Cayes, Haiti. 25. The vision of the Senior Advisory Group is of a United Nations that delivers through partnership. Recognizing its own limitations does not mean doing less. Rather, it requires outreach to new partners with new capacities, and developing a new modus operandi where a smaller United Nations civilian staff works with others to deliver a better, richer response. 26. The Senior Advisory Group therefore makes three recommendations, recommendations 8 to 10 below, to establish a mechanism that enables global partnerships and deepens the United Nations access to a global pool of capacities. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 16 Recommendations: Working in a global partnership 27. The recommendations of the Senior Advisory Group are the following: Recommendation 8 Establish a mechanism to en able and manage partnerships In order to leverage existing and new global capacities, the United Nations needs a docking mechanism to connect to external partners. The Group recommends the establishment of a Civilian Partnerships Cell, housed in the Department of Field Support, in partnership with UNDP, and serving all United Nations field presences in conflict-affected countries. This would be congruent with the global field support strategy. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would: (a) Connect the United Nations in the field to external capacity providers. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would provide to United Nations peacekeeping operations, field-based special political missions and resident coordinators a single point of contact, allowing them to access, select and deploy civilian capacities in Member States, regional and subregional organizations, non-governmental organizations and other roster holders, based on a field-driven definition of need. (b) Establish long-term relationships with external capacity providers. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would support the cluster leads proposed in recommendation 11 below in establishing legal and administrative mechanisms to enable deployment of capacity from cluster participants (regional and subregional organizations, Member States, non-governmental organizations, etc.) and other external actors. It would also work with cluster leads and United Nations training providers to ensure standards compliance. 7 The Group urges Member States to begin developing formal agreements with the Civilian Partnerships Cell as soon as feasible. (c) Standardize legal arrangements. The Civilian Partnerships Cell, working with the Office of Legal Affairs and others, should develop standardized memorandums of understanding for use with national, regional and non-governmental partners, drawing on the lessons of the Standby Partnerships Programme of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the rich experience of agencies, funds and programmes. (d) Manage an internal rapid deployment roster. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would manage an internal United Nations roster for rapid deployments in crises. The creation of such a roster is discussed in detail in annex I. (e) Be accountable. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would be accountable to Member States for geographic diversity and gender balance. Diversity should be a prerequisite for all formal partnerships. (f) Offer its services widely. Where existing mechanisms, particularly within agencies, funds and programmes, are effective and sufficient, they should not be subsumed into the Civilian Partnerships Cell. It would, however, be a resource available to the whole United Nations. __________________ 7 United Nations providers include the Integrated Training Service of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the United Nations System Staff College. A/65/747 S/2011/85 17 11-24080 Recommendation 9 Develop a United Nations policy framework for partnership To enable the Civilian Partnerships Cell to function efficiently the Group proposes the following: (a) Clarify the use of temporary and urgent assistance. General Assembly resolutions govern the use of gratis personnel to provide expertise not available within the Organization and to provide temporary and urgent assistance. 8 An administrative clarification by the Secretary-General that, in the 24 to 36 months after conflict, urgent assistance is appropriate, would provide the requisite flexibility for partnerships to work smoothly. 9 (b) Expand the use of the experts on mission modality. This modality allows personnel with needed expertise to provide their services to the United Nations while still retaining their link to their regular career. It is a powerful tool for mobilizing expertise, particularly from the global South, and its expansion will help the United Nations to source the capacities it needs. (c) Develop civilian support packages. Resources from assessed mission budgets should be available to fund civilian support packages. A civilian support package would be established by a Member State, a regional organization, or a centre of excellence in response to a clear, field-identified need for a group of specialized civilian capacities. These packages would use the existing framework of letters of assist, and be made available to all United Nations field operations where there are critical gaps in civilian capacities. (d) Support enhanced triangular and South-South cooperation. South-South cooperation and triangular mechanisms provide critical short- and longer-term assistance in the aftermath of conflict, as evidenced by the variety of initiatives in which donors have invested heavily. The existing framework within UNDP for South-South cooperation provides a potential reference point on effective mechanisms for doing so. The Group encourages further investment in these mechanisms. (e) Make more effective use of volunteers, particularly United Nations Volunteers. The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme was frequently identified to the Senior Advisory Group as a diverse and field-tested source of capacity. United Nations leaders in the field should make greater use of UNV. In sectors with identified capacity gaps the Group encourages UNV to develop specialized rosters. Other volunteer mechanisms, such as community-based voluntary action, and regional and subregional volunteer rosters, also offer potentially useful capacity. (f) Increase private sector partnerships. Private sector expertise, particularly in the areas of natural resources management and private sector development, could benefit conflict-affected communities. The Civilian Partnerships Cell, working with the Office for Partnerships and the United Nations Global Compact, should develop concrete proposals with its partners for providing civilian capacities to field operations in these areas, as well as others where capacity may be found. The Group welcomes the Small and Medium Enterprise Finance Challenge recently launched __________________ 8 Resolutions 51/243 and 52/234. 9 Such a clarification would supersede ST/AI/1999/6. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 18 by the Group of 20 (G-20), which sought to increase access to scalable credit solutions for small firms, as this is a particular challenge in the area of private sector development in post-conflict contexts. The United Nations should align itself with and support this initiative. (g) Create and/or support centres of excellence. Centres of excellence could be developed in areas where there is a clear capacity need. These centres could house civilians with highly specialized, in-demand skills such as aid coordination, public administration and security sector reform. Organizations of this sort already exist and partner with the United Nations in areas such as transitional justice, and this model should be expanded. Recommendation 10 Improve training resources for the global pool of capacity providers The partnership model relies on a minimum threshold of common guidance and support for external actors seeking to work together with the United Nations. In order to help create new pools of capacity, and to promote standards among existing ones, based on the successful models used in peacekeeping, the Group proposes: (a) Define where training is needed. The Integrated Training Service of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the United Nations System Staff College should work with the Office for Human Resources Management, the Department of Field Support, the Civilian Partnerships Cell and the cluster leads, designated in recommendation 11 below, to identify where skills are needed and then either provide training or identify appropriate external trainings. (b) Define standards for training, trainers and trainees. For each area, the United Nations needs clear standards for quality certification. Where work has already begun, these could be developed internally. In other cases, partnerships with universities and other actors could help to define global standards. This information should be freely shared with training centres, universities and private sector actors. (c) Create a certification mechanism. The Integrated Training Service of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the United Nations System Staff College should develop a formal training certification mechanism, operated on a cost-recovery basis, to guarantee programmes of sufficient quality. This mechanism should certify programmes, and eventually trainers. This builds on work done for peacekeeping training centres. (d) Create access to training (i) Enable peacekeeping training centres to better deliver civilian training. The existing peacekeeping training centres can provide a low-cost option to deliver further civilian training. The General Assembly in its resolution 49/37 encouraged the establishment of peacekeeping training centres, on a national or regional basis as deemed appropriate, for military and civilian personnel. Financial support to countries in the global South, coupled with a rigorous certification mechanism for trainers, could help to expand the quantity and quality of civilian training provided by those centres. (ii) Develop global knowledge networks. Professional networks in specialist areas that bridge the United Nations system and its implementing partners are A/65/747 S/2011/85 19 11-24080 best positioned to develop knowledge management systems and practices. Where these networks are absent, they should be developed and linked to centres of excellence and training centres. (iii) Leverage centres of excellence. Centres of excellence, as recommended in recommendation 9 above, could also offer training. They could be housed in academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, regional or subregional organizations, Governments or even United Nations entities. Each centre should disseminate knowledge between the United Nations, academia and the network of civilian training centres. They could foster professional networks, providing platforms for knowledge sharing between providers of civilian training. IV. Expertise 28. The United Nations plays a privileged role in the management of armed conflict, acting both as a primary response mechanism and as a coordinator of wider international efforts. To fulfil these roles successfully, the Security Council has emphasized the need to upgrade the United Nations capacity for successful planning, establishment, deployment, conduct, monitoring and evaluation, as well as transition and completion, of peacekeeping operations, and has recognized the need for experienced, trained and equipped civilian personnel to deliver a comprehensive, integrated and flexible response. 10 29. Yet a series of independent, field-based research studies has concluded that the current systems of the United Nations can neither rapidly provide civilian capacities aligned with national needs nor cope with constantly changing circumstances. 11 The Group’s consultations confirm this. These challenges are a significant source of frustration and have been a point of recent international discussions in the General Assembly, the Security Council, the G-20 and the High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. 30. The Senior Advisory Group envisions a modern United Nations that can provide the core civilian capacities reliably and promptly and can identify and fill capacity gaps, drawing both on its own rich resources and on partnerships with others. Moreover, to deploy these capacities to best effect in the field, the United Nations must be able to deploy appropriately trained leaders, accountable for their performance as the United Nations is accountable to Member States for implementation of its mandates. 31. The Group sets out below how it believes this can be achieved. Yet first one key prerequisite must be emphasized: the need for a human resources system in the Secretariat that can place the right people in the right place at the right time in fast- moving field operations. In discussions with senior United Nations leaders in the __________________ 10 S/PRST/2010/18. 11 See, for example, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Recruitment and Deployment of Civilian Capacity in Early Recovery , 2010; Peace Dividend Trust, Mapping the Demand for Deployed Civilian Capacity , 2010; Eric Morris, Conjuring Spirits from the Vasty Deep: A User’s Guide to Proposals for Strengthening UN Civilian Capacity in Peace Operations (Stanford University, 2010); and New York University Center on International Cooperation, Rapid Deployment of Civilians in Peace Operations and Recovering from War, 2009. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 20 field, the problems of human resources and the slow pace of recruitment are described as the greatest internal challenges to mandate implementation. 32. This is a fundamental architectural issue. It may be impossible to design a recruitment system that can both fully satisfy the extensive process requirements for Headquarters recruitment and also support large, responsive field operations. Nonetheless, there are measures that could be adopted within the existing architecture to address some of the most pressing issues. Annex I contains an analysis of these issues and recommendations to improve the ability of the United Nations to deploy its own expertise to maximum effect. A. Core capacities 33. International support in the aftermath of conflict is most frequently requested in five areas: (1) basic safety and security; (2) inclusive political processes; (3) basic social services; (4) core government functionality; and (5) economic revitalization. 12 Table 1 builds on these five areas, and prior research, 13 to identify a set of core tasks in the aftermath of conflict, tasks common to every post-conflict setting the Group has considered. It also identifies three cross-cutting areas: capacity development, gender and human rights. 34. The Senior Advisory Group examined current capacity in each of these core tasks and identified the following critical capacity gaps: (a) In the area of basic safety and security: disarmament, demobilization and reintegration; police; and security sector reform and governance; (b) In the area of justice: corrections; criminal justice; and judicial and legal reform; (c) In the area of inclusive political processes: political party development; and public information; (d) In the area of core government functionality: aid coordination; legislative branch; and public financial management; (e) In the area of economic revitalization: employment generation; natural resource management; and private sector development. 35. This assessment is offered with the following caveats: (a) The data provide a snapshot of a highly dynamic field. Moreover, there is no certainty about the extent and deployability of capacities, and there may be capacity gaps beyond those listed above. (b) In some areas there is some capacity but it is insufficient. An example is the area of core government functionality including policy and aid coordination. In others, there simply may not be capacity available, within the United Nations or beyond. __________________ 12 A/63/881-S/2009/304, para. 17. 13 Executive Office of the Secretary-General, “Inventory: United Nations Capacity in Peacebuilding”, 2006. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 21 Table 1 Core tasks in the aftermath of conflict: clusters and subclusters of activity Basic safety and security Inclusive political processes Basic services Core government functionality Economic revitalization Basic safety and security Inclusive political process Humanitarian activities Core government functionality Economic revitalization Community violence reduction Constitutional processes Agriculture Aid policy and coordination Employment generation Disarmament and demobilization Elections and electoral processes Camp coordination, camp management Anti-corruption Natural resource management Mine action Mediation, good offices and conflict resolution Education Executive branch Private sector and industrial development Police Support to civil society Early recovery Legislative branch Public works and infrastructure Protection of civilians Political party development Emergency shelter Local governance Security sector reform and governance Public information and media Health Public administration reform Transnational crime/ counter-terrorism Nutrition Public financial management Justice Protection Urban planning Corrections Water, sanitation and hygiene Criminal justice Judicial and legal reform Transitional justice Capacity development Gender Human rights A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 22 (c) The Secretariat uses occupational groups in recruitment that bear little resemblance to the reality of actual jobs. An environmental conflict officer might be classified under the group “civil affairs”; so might a member of a local government support team. The nuanced nature of the needs of conflict-affected communities is not reflected in the data. (d) In the absence of a shared vocabulary and typology of capacity, it is impossible to distinguish between capacities aligned towards substitution, and those aligned towards training or imparting skills and knowledge. For example, in the area of the rule of law the Group observed a need both for a corps of standby judges to deploy in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, and for the long-term capacity to train a national judiciary. (e) There is evidence of many actors making aspirational claims of capacity, perhaps in the hope of generating resources. This may be a natural response to the lack of donor coherence. When donors support different United Nations actors to provide the same capacities, the results are often poor. 36. Having defined these core tasks and the critical gaps among them, the Group then considered how the United Nations could do better in filling the gaps and providing the core capacities promptly and reliably. First, the group observed that the most rapid and versatile units of civilian capacity within the United Nations include those, such as the Mine Action Service and the Electoral Assistance Division, which function as global service providers to clients across the whole system. Second, it noted that in the humanitarian sphere the cluster approach has helped to address sectoral gaps, fostered stronger leadership, and improved preparedness and surge capacity. 14 By contrast, in non-cluster areas there is a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities, and about which actors are responsible for ensuring that there is adequate capacity to respond to anticipated demand. 37. The Senior Advisory Group therefore recommends, in recommendation 11 below, the extension of the model of global service provision across the United Nations work in the aftermath of conflict, and the formation of clusters and subclusters for each sector. 38. The cluster model used in the humanitarian sphere is not perfectly transferable to the aftermath of conflict. The obligation to act as provider of last resort is not appropriate, and should not be carried over. Rather, those clusters, working with the Civilian Partnerships Cell when needed, should: (a) Identify sources of capacity and capacity gaps within each cluster, building on the capacity mapping done for this report; 15 (b) Provide clear, sector-specific statements of comparative advantage, to prioritize where the United Nations should focus on strengthening its own capacities, and where partnership or subcontracting is more appropriate; (c) Foster a culture of global service provision, so that leaders in the field can easily access the capacities they need; (d) Provide a framework of common guidance and training for experts serving under the United Nations umbrella. __________________ 14 Overseas Development Institute, “Evaluation of the cluster approach”, 2008. 15 The capacity mapping can be found at www.civcapreview.org. A/65/747 S/2011/85 23 11-24080 B. Accountability and leadership 39. If the United Nations is to deliver successfully on its mandated tasks and maximize the effectiveness of Member States’ investments in peace and security, then accountability is vital. Strategic accountability 40. The pendulum of accountability has swung too far in favour of complex, highly regulated administrative and human resource systems, and away from the core mission: implementing Member States’ mandates. Audits remain focused on administrative compliance rather than substantive delivery. The resulting culture of aversion to risk is often inappropriate for the United Nations work in conflict settings, which requires embracing calculated risk. Experimentation and innovation are often crucial to successful implementation of challenging mandates. 41. The transformation of the incentive structures of the United Nations towards delivery of mandates and operational success, rather than towards administrative compliance, remains a critical cultural goal for the United Nations and its Member States. Operational accountability 42. In some cases, such as those of Liberia and Sierra Leone, the Group has seen positive examples of the United Nations “delivering as one”. But in others the record has been poor. While there are architectural issues at play, with United Nations actors all managed by different entities, there is significant potential for improvement. 43. One particular area of concern is gender. While the Secretary-General has pushed his senior leaders to improve gender balance, the Group is disappointed to have seen little evidence of senior field leaders being held accountable for this — whether on gender balance within the United Nations own ranks, inclusion in political processes, deployment of gender expertise, or gender-sensitive budgeting. The Group hopes that UN-Women will strengthen the understanding of how to improve gender equality, based on the concrete indicators of success set out in the Secretary-General’s report on women and peace and security. 16 Structural accountability 44. Lines of authority in field operations are often confusing and are not clearly linked to mandates and tasks. In missions, in particular, there is a marked tension between the “support” side and the “substantive” side and a lack of unity of effort. The current situation, where the leader accountable for the successful implementation of the mandate cannot control the efficient use of the mission’s resources, is untenable. 45. The Senior Advisory Group therefore makes a series of recommendations, under recommendation 12 below, to improve accountability. __________________ 16 S/2010/498. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 24 Leadership 46. Finally, not all senior leaders in the field possess the full set of skills required to manage field operations. The Group notes the efforts of the Under-Secretaries- General for Peacekeeping Operations, Political Affairs, Field Support and the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Administrator of UNDP to improve the quality of field leadership, particularly with respect to accountability and the establishment of the Senior Leadership Appointments Section. The Head of Mission or Resident Coordinator, as the leader of a United Nations field presence, is essential to its success, and the Group shares the belief that these leaders must be adequately trained and supported to perform these tasks. 47. The Senior Advisory Group therefore makes a series of recommendations, under recommendation 13 below, to improve leadership. C. Recommendations: Delivering with expertise 48. The recommendations of the Senior Advisory Group are the following: Recommendation 11 Fix core capacities (a) Establish a cluster system for core areas of activity in the aftermath of conflict. As in the humanitarian system, there should be cluster leads for all areas. In table 2 are proposed cluster and subcluster leads, based on existing capacities. The World Bank is included among the suggested cluster leads because of the Bank’s substantial capacities in several areas. The Group hopes that the Bank will consider taking on these roles, and suggests that this should be a topic for early discussion between the Secretary-General and the President of the Bank. (b) Define capacities and gaps. Building on the work in the capacity mapping done for this report, 15 cluster and subcluster leads should produce, within 12 months, a revised list of sources of capacity available to deploy in the aftermath of conflict, a typology of capacities applicable to their areas and a list of capacity gaps. Cluster leads should determine which capacities are United Nations core capacities — to be nurtured and enhanced — and which should be secured through external partnerships. (c) Retain flexibility. As in the humanitarian system, the Head of Mission or Resident Coordinator should be free to use either the cluster lead, if it had a viable local presence, or alternative mechanisms. (d) Focus on gender as a cross-cutting issue. UN-Women, as the proposed lead for the gender cluster, should identify, in conjunction with cluster members, sectors where specialized gender expertise is needed and could have a concrete impact. (e) Develop terms of reference for the global service provider model. The services offered by global service providers are available across the entire United Nations system, enabling a more flexible United Nations response. The Group proposes that cluster leads should adopt the model of global service providers. However, the model of global service provision is inadequately articulated. The A/65/747 S/2011/85 25 11-24080 Policy Committee of the Secretary-General should define its terms of reference, covering: (i) Service: how the global service provider would provide its services to missions led by the Department of Political Affairs and those led by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, to non-mission contexts, to regional actors and to Member States; (ii) Partnership: how the global service provider would work with other sources of capacity within the United Nations and externally; (iii) Outreach, training, standards: how the global service provider would ensure diversity, relevance and quality. (f) Invest in training in crisis response skills. There is a lack of training available for crisis-relevant skills. This is exacerbated by the lack of access of field- based special political missions to training. The Integrated Training Service of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the United Nations System Staff College, within the framework of their new agreement, should ensure that: (i) Cluster leads have technical support to identify externally available trainings, or if necessary develop their own, to improve the quality of capacity and the ability to certify quality; (ii) Field-based special political missions, resident coordinators and their staff have access to relevant training. Recommendation 12 Create a culture of accountability (a) Increase accountability for implementation. Leadership teams should be held collectively accountable for the implementation of their plans. This will help to ensure that plans are viable and reduce the division between support and substantive actors. Directors of mission support must be involved in planning and recognized as critical actors within the mission, accountable directly to heads of mission. (b) Increase accountability for gender equality. The Secretary-General, through UN-Women, should encourage annual independent audits of progress towards gender equality against the indicators set out in his report, 16 and hold his senior leadership accountable for such progress. (c) Increase accountability for service provision. The scale of the United Nations response requires different parts of the system to work together. Structures of accountability do not hold field leaders accountable for working together, especially when it involves providing services to other United Nations actors. Senior managers’ compacts with the Secretary-General should include accountability for service provision. (d) Create a results-based audit culture that seeks to enable and improve mandate implementation, rather than just punish administrative non-compliance . The primary goal of audits of field activities should be to ensure that, within the context of the rules and regulations laid down by Member States, heads of mission are implementing their mandates as effectively and efficiently as possible. Audits should offer proactive suggestions for how to do so, taking account of available A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 26 resources. This is the logical and necessary continuation of a cultural shift that began with results-based management. (e) Support a systematic tolerance for risk. The Senior Advisory Group welcomes signals of a system-wide platform for risk management, but notes that this must enable leadership in conflict-affected countries to take more risks and to manage them more effectively. Field operations in conflict-affected countries are very different from daily work at Headquarters and require a different approach to risk. Recommendation 13 Leadership (a) Training for leaders. As well as the right political judgement and professional experience, United Nations leaders must have the necessary administrative knowledge to manage the United Nations response to conflict efficiently and effectively. Currently, the lack of understanding of United Nations rules hampers the ability of field leaders to use the flexibility that exists within the system. The Department of Field Support should strengthen training for all incoming senior leaders (including Special, Executive and Deputy Special Representatives of the Secretary-General as well as Chiefs of Staff) to ensure substantial coverage of support issues (administration, finance, human resources, information technology and communications). This course should be delivered jointly with the senior leader’s respective Director of Mission Support so that specific options for a more responsive mission can be discussed. Issues related to integrating the United Nations support structure on the ground between missions and agencies, funds and programmes should also be addressed in this training. (b) Selection on competence. Member States should support the Secretary- General’s drive to improve United Nations leadership through selection based on competence. V. Nimbleness 49. United Nations leaders in the field must be able to allocate resources in the most effective manner possible. As situations evolve and needs change, they need to be able to direct resources accordingly. Failing this, international interventions will continue to provide the wrong capacities or to overwhelm nascent national capacities. 50. The Senior Advisory Group envisions a system where the Head of Mission or Resident Coordinator allocates resources on the basis of dynamic assessments of needs. The United Nations often prepares its plans when it knows the least about a country and its capacities. It then establishes resource allocations based on those plans. As knowledge and competence grows, and national actors can more effectively prioritize, the United Nations must respond, and change its plans and budgets. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 27 Table 2 Clusters and cluster leads Basic safety and security Inclusive political processes Basic services Core government functionality Economic revitalization Clusters and subclusters Lead Clusters and subclusters Lead Existing clusters Lead Clusters and subclusters Lead Clusters and subclusters Lead Basic safety and security DPKO Inclusive political processes DPA Humanitarian coordination OCHA Core government functionality UNDP Economic revitalization World Bank Community violence reduction UNDP Constitutional processes DPA Agriculture FAO Aid policy and coordination UNDP Employment generation UNDP Disarmament and demobilization DPKO Elections and electoral processes DPA Camp coordination, camp management UNHCR Anti- corruption World Bank Natural resource management UNEP Mine action DPKO Mediation, good offices and conflict resolution DPA Education UNICEF Executive branch UNDP Private sector and industrial development World Bank Police DPKO Support to civil society UNDP Early recovery UNDP Legislative branch UNDP Public works and infrastructure World Bank Protection of civilians DPKO Political party development UNDP Emergency shelter UNHCR Local governance UNDP Security sector reform and governance DPKO Public information and media UNDP Health WHO Public administrative reform World Bank Transnational crime/counter- terrorism UNODC Nutrition UNICEF Public financial management World Bank A/65/747 S/2011/85 28 11-24080 Basic safety and security Inclusive political processes Basic services Core government functionality Economic revitalization Clusters and subclusters Lead Clusters and subclusters Lead Existing clusters Lead Clusters and subclusters Lead Clusters and subclusters Lead Justice UNDP Protection UNHCR Urban planning UN- Habitat Corrections DPKO Water, sanitation and hygiene UNICEF Criminal justice UNDP Judicial and legal reform UNDP Transitional justice OHCHR Capacity development UNDP Gender UN- Women Human rights OHCHR Abbreviations : DPA, Department of Political Affairs; DPKO, Department of P eacekeeping Operations; FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; OCHA, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; OHCHR, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; UNDP, United Nations Development Programme; UNEP, United Nations Environment Programme; UNHCR, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; UNICEF, United Nations Children’s Fund; UNODC, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; WHO, World Health Organization . A/65/747 S/2011/85 29 11-24080 51. In the Group’s vision, the Head of Mission or Resident Coordinator would seek out the actor with the greatest comparative advantage — national or international non-governmental organization, mission, agency, fund or programme — and work to ensure that that actor had the necessary resources to address needs. This is a simple model of directing human and material investments to where they can best produce results. 52. To fund such a response, there are three types of instruments available to the United Nations in the aftermath of conflict: (1) assessed contributions; (2) existing trust funds; (3) new voluntary contributions. The current system does not allow leaders to select from these instruments and direct resources to the actor with the greatest comparative advantage. Instead, resource availability drives civilian capacity. Where national capacity might be most suitable, more expensive international actors are often used. 53. The recommendations on effective partnership mechanisms and training for mission leaders set out above will work best if they are linked to the ability to direct resources in response to need. Leaner missions will need to be more flexible. The Group sees four obstacles to overcome. 54. First, sourcing new voluntary funding is often slow and unpredictable. For the agencies, funds and programmes, project-based extrabudgetary resources usually have to be raised before activities can begin. This delays the start of critical peacebuilding tasks in the immediate aftermath of conflict. 55. To shorten this delay, the Working Capital Facility of the World Food Programme (WFP) leverages working capital to provide loans to field programmes in advance of forecast contributions, to accelerate delivery. In its first full year of operation (2005), the Working Capital Facility enabled WFP to reach an additional 8.2 million beneficiaries on time, and achieved direct savings of $20.4 million. An estimated $75 million would have been required in cash contributions at the beginning of 2005 to produce this same effect. It has since successfully advanced $1.02 billion, with no write-offs, and has improved delivery speed by 57 days. This approach could usefully be extended to other United Nations entities dependent on voluntary funding. 56. Second, existing trust funds are often unable to disburse to missions. For example, the Peacebuilding Fund is tasked to “support peacebuilding activities that directly contribute to post-conflict stabilization and strengthen the capacity of Governments, national/local institutions and transitional or other relevant authorities”. 17 Yet in practice the Peacebuilding Fund cannot support peacekeeping operations or special political missions. This is because the Secretariat charges an overhead rate of 13 per cent, which exceeds the Fund’s ceiling of 7 per cent for overhead charges. This limitation prevents the use of mission capacities — even where missions have a comparative advantage or pre-existing deployed assets. 57. Third, these funding streams do not provide adequate resources for programmatic activities necessary to implement mandates. If Security Council mandates comprise those tasks that Member States consider essential for stability, then it is incongruous that the United Nations cannot secure funding to implement those mandates. The current system provides assessed funding primarily for __________________ 17 See A/63/818, annex. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 30 security-related portions of the mandate, and civilian staff. For programming related to mandated tasks, the United Nations remains reliant on slow, less predictable voluntary funding. For example, the Standing Police Capacity can deploy expert personnel at short notice. It deploys without access to programmatic funds, however, and cannot provide basic training and operating capacity to its national counterparts, greatly limiting its effectiveness. This is a frequent source of concern to conflict- affected communities, which perceive a failure to deliver in the early window of opportunity when peace dividends are crucial. 58. Fourth, there is a lack of flexibility in the use of all these instruments. Member States expect heads of mission to work with national authorities to support stability. Yet they cannot easily move resources — fiscal or human — from one area to another, even when the Government and the Head of Mission believe this would contribute to greater stability. This creates inefficiency. For example, where a community violence reduction programme would provide more stability in combination with United Nations military and police assets, the Head of Mission needs the option to calibrate accordingly. The Group notes that, even where Member States have granted flexibility in the allocation of resources, this flexibility is not always used. The systems and culture of the Organization constrain it, even when Member States do not. 59. Separately but urgently, the Group notes that field-based special political missions remain on the regular budget of the United Nations. They therefore lack the support systems and operational tools required to operate in increasingly difficult environments for longer periods of time. This categorization often precludes the flexibility that these field operations require and limits their effectiveness. The General Assembly has recognized the need for better support systems, and mandated the Secretary-General to conduct a review in 2011. 18 60. The Senior Advisory Group makes recommendations, under recommendation 14 below, to create flexibility and fungibility within the United Nations to enable a more nimble response. Recommendations: Nimble in the face of change 61. The recommendations of the Senior Advisory Group are the following: Recommendation 14 Enabling a more nimble response to conflict (a) Create the flexibility required to direct capacity towards needs. The leaders of the United Nations in the field must be able to respond to crises and changing circumstances. To do so, they need the ability to use resources flexibly. Accordingly, within the envelope approved by the General Assembly, the Group proposes that heads of mission should be able to reallocate up to 20 per cent of resources in the budget line for civilian personnel, with only ex post facto justification (equivalent on average to less than 5 per cent of the total budget of a peacekeeping operation). This measure would enable greater use of civilian support packages and the experts on mission modality to address critical capacity gaps. __________________ 18 Resolution 65/259, section XIII. A/65/747 S/2011/85 31 11-24080 (b) Use the principle of comparative advantage to implement mandates. Only a limited number of tasks should be implemented directly by Secretariat-led operations. Whenever practical and feasible, local capacities should be doing this. Where capacities outside a mission, whether in the agencies, funds and programmes or beyond, have a comparative advantage in implementing a task mandated by the Security Council, the Head of Mission should be able to direct funds to that actor. The United Nations should codify that heads of mission have the flexibility, authority and responsibility to apply this principle. (c) Enable missions to undertake programmatic tasks. When, as in the example of the police above, civilian capacities within the mission have a comparative advantage in implementing a mandated task, heads of mission should be able to provide the necessary programmatic funds from assessed contributions, within the envelope approved by the General Assembly. Where missions undertake programmatic activities, they should specify a time horizon and identify successor arrangements. The Group urges the General Assembly to build on existing successful examples from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti and others to expand this initiative for future missions. (d) Develop robust guidance for senior leadership. Guidance and training on how to do this effectively should form a standard part of senior leadership training. In the absence of clear guidance, mission staff and directors of mission support err on the side of caution; this can mean missing opportunities for greater impact and increased efficiency. (e) Recognize the need for flexibility during mission start-up. Current budgetary processes require missions to project needs 18 to 24 months in advance. This is unworkable in the volatile aftermath of conflict. Instead, during mission start-up, the Secretariat should propose more generic budgets to legislative bodies. A definitive budget should follow once national priorities are clearer. The Group urges Member States to accept this evolution as the norm, not the exception, for United Nations field missions in the aftermath of conflict. (f) Harmonize trust fund overheads across the United Nations. The current, punitive overhead of 13 per cent for Secretariat-managed mission trust funds acts as a disincentive to allocate resources based on comparative advantage. A common overhead would be more efficient and encourage the rational allocation of resources. A rate of 7 per cent, commensurate with multi-donor trust funds managed by UNDP, is suggested. In the future, overheads could be lowered further with appropriate economies of scale. The Controller should overhaul mission trust fund management modalities to update them for operations in the aftermath of conflict. This would allow the Peacebuilding Fund, inter alia, to become an additional, complementary source of financing to assessed contributions in the early window of opportunity, able to leverage the civilian capacities within United Nations missions. (g) Improve access to rapid-response financing for agencies, funds and programmes . This should incorporate elements of the Working Capital Facility of the World Food Programme, as described above, as well as models based on internal loan facilities and the fast-track procedures of UNDP. Agencies, funds and programmes should present a formal recommendation to their Boards within 12 months of this report. The Group hopes that the World Food Programme and the United Nations Development Programme can assist with this process. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 32 VI. Conclusions 62. In countries emerging from conflict, political, security and development processes reinforce one another to build a durable peace. Yet the separation of peacekeeping, peacebuilding and political affairs into separate boxes, and the alignment of departments and funding modalities with these arbitrary divisions, constrain the United Nations ability to deploy the right capacity at the right time and to adjust in response to changing needs. 63. The Secretary-General recently observed to the Security Council that “we should move beyond the idea of a clear-cut sequence of peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. These tools should be deployed in integrated fashion, not kept in separate silos. Conflict seldom follows a tidy path. We must continue to evolve, towards a faster and more flexible architecture of response that allows us to customize our assistance to the real and immediate needs on the ground”. 19 64. Fixing the capacity problems of the United Nations is a necessary step towards this transformation. The United Nations must have the expertise required to respond to conflict. The Group echoes here the statement of the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, Lakhdar Brahimi, to the General Assembly on 22 June 2010, where he reiterated his: … call to invest in systems to attract the best and brightest mission leadership and civilian expertise for field service. There is no substitute for getting the right people, into the right jobs, at the right time and only for the time that is necessary. Many peacekeeping veterans told [our panel] that the civilian personnel system was failing the missions, as well as the personnel themselves. If there were only one problem to fix, they said, it would be this one. Ten years later, I fear many of them might say the same. Why does this problem persist? 65. Despite the persistence of this problem, the Group saw support for changing the culture of the United Nations and building leaner, more nimble and cost- effective systems. The United Nations must evolve to deliver the civilian capacities needed by conflict-affected States. The Group believes that the principle of national ownership and the spirit of partnership can help to guide the Member States and the United Nations through this evolution. These ideas are central to our common endeavour — to enable the poorest countries in the world to shape a durable peace and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. There is no single way to accomplish this, but there are surely better ways. 66. To conclude, the members of the Senior Advisory Group thank the Secretary- General for this opportunity. It has been an enormous privilege to engage with those who often risk so much in the service of peace. It is hoped that this report and its recommendations for change will prove of some value to them. __________________ 19 See S/PV.6389. A/65/747 S/2011/85 33 11-24080 Annex I Human resources at the United Nations 1. The human resources management systems of the United Nations Secretariat were designed to meet the needs of a career civil service, where the scope of work, numbers of staff and the skills required are predictable. The field operations of the United Nations present an entirely different challenge. They are expected to implement challenging multi-dimensional mandates, in volatile post-conflict environments, in order to build peace and stability. Every context is different. Each requires its own mix of civilian capacities, specialized skills and experience, to meet specific local needs. And those capacities must be deployed rapidly, in the early window of opportunity in the immediate aftermath of conflict, if mandates are to be successfully implemented. 2. This annex — and the report to which it is attached — cannot reconcile this tension. It is arguably impossible to design a recruitment system that can successfully both satisfy the process requirements for Headquarters recruitment and support large, fast-moving field operations. Instead, the Group’s analysis, built on extensive work with the Secretariat, the peacebuilding community of practice, field trips and interviews, proposes some steps that could help. 3. In 2000, the Brahimi report called for improvements to the human resources systems of the Secretariat. a After a decade of effort, it is clear that the Secretariat has not evolved a workable, reliable system to deliver to field operations the right people in the right place at the right time. By contrast the agencies, funds and programmes have been able to transform themselves, and for the most part they now deliver field-oriented and flexible staffing. 4. Senior United Nations leaders in the field described to the Group the problems of human resources, especially the extraordinarily slow pace of recruitment, as the largest internal challenges to mandate implementation. 5. A brief look at field staffing for the Secretariat over the past five years reinforces this conclusion. The figure shows the number of authorized civilian personnel, the number of vacancies and the size of the Secretariat workforce. It is striking that, while the number of authorized posts and the number of vacancies are nearly perfectly synchronized, the size of the workforce grows at a nearly constant rate. This suggests that the current system of recruitment and deployment struggles to cope with sudden changes in demand posed by mission start-up or other surge needs. __________________ a Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (A/55/305-S/2000/809), particularly recommendation 11. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 34 United Nations authorized posts, vacancies and workforce, 2006-2010 6. The current cycle of human resources reform at the Secretariat began with the best of intentions: to create a stronger, fairer, faster system. In fact, however, respondents from the field almost universally agree that currently it is harder, not easier, to get the right people into the field at the right time. Rather than creating incentives for mobility, the reforms have made it much less attractive for Headquarters staff to move to the field. Respondents observed that “recruiting processes take up to a year, while the needs of a fluid, complex operating environment are immediate … In cases where a crisis is either occurring or anticipated, by the time organizations are able to dispatch qualified personnel on the ground, either it is too late (the crisis has had its worst effect), or the potential employee is no longer available or interested.” b 7. The current processes for recruitment and deployment are client-unfriendly — whether the client is defined as the entity seeking staff or the job seeker. The system is opaque, difficult to navigate, and provides poor feedback about where in the recruitment process an applicant is at any given time. This, coupled with recruitment times that average more than six months, makes it very difficult for the United Nations to recruit the best and brightest. Indeed, a senior United Nations official suggested that “after the best and brightest have given up, we often recruit what is left”. 8. The Secretariat continues to use a single, lengthy and arduous process for all phases of the human resources cycle — recruitment, lateral moves and promotions. This creates a significant disadvantage when seeking to rapidly reassign, in response to need, staff who have already been cleared and vetted, and it discourages staff from seeking promotions or career growth. The recently implemented roster system __________________ b See Peacebuilding Support Office, “Summary of Responses to Part One and Part Two of a Thematic e-Discussion on the UN Review of International Civilian Capacities”, 2010; available from www.civcap.info/community_of_practice/e-discussions.html. United Nations international Staff December 2006 - July 2010 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 Dec-06 Feb-0 7 Apr-07 Jun-0 7 Aug-07 Oct-07 Dec-07 Feb-0 8 Apr-08 Jun-0 8 Aug-08 Oct-08 Dec-08 Feb-0 9 Apr-09 Jun-0 9 Aug-09 Oct-09 Dec-09 Feb-1 0 Apr-10 Jun-10 Authorized Encumbered Vacant United Nations international staff, December 2006-July 2010 A/65/747 S/2011/85 35 11-24080 may help in this regard, but it is too early to tell. The Group has recommended, in recommendation 13 (a) above, better training for senior managers on how to use the human resources system. Nonetheless, if the Secretary-General’s vision of a unified global Secretariat is to be realized, the Group sees a need for differentiated approaches that cater to the operational tempo of the United Nations in the field as well as to the requirements of Headquarters. 9. As well as being slow, the recruitment system lacks the ability to fill highly specialized needs. It has been described as a “wholesale” mechanism — designed to sift through bulk applications for general purposes. Increasingly, however, the contextual nature of conflict produces specialized peacebuilding demands (for example, natural resource management in Liberia, combating drugs and organized crime in Guinea-Bissau or land management in Darfur). The system is unable to meet these demands. 10. This is less true for the specialized agencies, which have technically focused mandates and stronger professional networks. They have shown, for example, that they can deliver a West African integrated pest management specialist to Liberia at short notice. Yet even where highly specialized capacities exist within agencies, funds and programmes, the Secretariat lacks quick and easy mechanisms to leverage this expertise — either through bringing staff in temporarily or through subcontracting the function. 11. The Secretariat is failing to deliver on its own diversity targets, particularly with respect to gender. There is evidence that female staff are less satisfied than their male counterparts with their opportunities for career development, work experience and conditions of service. c The women who leave the Secretariat are younger than their male counterparts by an average of five years. c This is a particular concern as the Secretariat has an ageing problem: the average age for staff at the P-1 level is 32.1 years, at the P-2 level 34.5 years, and at the P-3 level 39.2 years, and only 1.6 per cent of staff are under the age of 30. The gender inequality at senior levels remains stark. Over 70 per cent of all staff at the P-5 level or higher are male, 64 per cent at the P-4 level, and 58 per cent at the P-3 level. d This suggests that the Secretariat fails to retain its women over time. In recommendation 12 (b) above, the Group has recommended stronger accountability for achievement of gender targets. This is imperative. 12. The Group notes, however, that the recruitment system has had success in preserving geographic diversity, with over 60 per cent of Secretariat field personnel coming from the global South. 13. The Secretariat, more generally, needs to be able to recognize, recruit, reward and retain talent. The current system fails to do so. Rather, it relies on the number of years of experience as the primary determinant of grade. External and private sector experience appears to be arbitrarily devalued and the quality and relevance of experience does not count. 14. It is also evident that the current human resources system struggles to cope with under-performance of staff. This is a function both of the flawed incentives already described and of an unwieldy justice system. In the current fiscal climate, __________________ c Office of Human Resources Management, Report on exit questionnaire, 26 February 2009. d A/65/350, table 9. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 36 where austerity is the order of the day, the United Nations must be accountable to Member States and discontinue the employment of non-performing staff. Recommendations 15. The Senior Advisory Group makes a series of recommendations to enable the human resources system of the Secretariat to better deliver the capacities needed to respond in the aftermath of conflict: Recommendation 15 Build more attractive career paths to retain and invest in talented staff (a) Expand the experimental rotation programme between the Secretariat, agencies, funds and programmes . While the agencies, funds and programmes have some highly specialized skills, they also have room for generalists with skills similar to those of Secretariat staff members. The Group recommends that the Voluntary Initiative for Network Exchange already under way — which encourages such rotation — be expanded. (b) Extend mobility requirements and make non-Secretariat service count. The Group welcomes recent moves to create mobility requirements for advancement. It notes with concern, however, that service for non-Secretariat United Nations actors does not count as field service by the Secretariat. Field service with any United Nations actor — or indeed any service outside the United Nations — should count towards mobility requirements for any United Nations entity and should be formally encouraged. There is also a strong argument to be made for a more robust mobility policy, perhaps one that mandates mobility requirements for all posts at or above the P-4 level in the Departments of Field Support, Political Affairs and Peacekeeping Operations. The areas of mobility and rotation policies offer a particularly high return on investment to adopting such a differentiated approach for field personnel. (c) Improve quality of training. The lack of a structured learning system for operational personnel and an insufficient focus on professional development have hampered the United Nations ability to retain and invest in its key personnel. The Group welcomes the initiatives under way to establish learning environments for operational staff. The Group urges substantive units to dedicate resources to training and thus improve its quality and relevance. (d) Mandate that all staff in the emerging young professionals programme deploy to the field on their first or second rotation . The proposed changes to the programme would provide valuable field experience to interested junior staff early in their career, thus increasing mobility and contributing to a more field-oriented organizational culture in the Secretariat, as well as bringing fresh ideas to the field. The Group welcomes this initiative and hopes it is implemented swiftly. (e) Develop a fast-track career programme. The Group urges the Secretariat to develop a fast-track career programme aimed at recognition, promotion and retention of exceptional talent. Simultaneously, the Secretariat should institute a real performance management system that provides 360-degree accountability and removes non-performing staff. A/65/747 S/2011/85 37 11-24080 Recommendation 16 Make staff welfare a higher priority (a) Create family-friendly environments. The United Nations was described by a senior official in the field as a “family un-friendly work environment”. The Group welcomes the ongoing work to harmonize the classification of duty stations, reversing the trend of making almost all Secretariat-led field operations non-family missions. The United Nations should work further towards creating a staff- and family-friendly workplace, including by (i) support for the relocation of family members to nearby countries during service in non-family duty stations, including through support for family members’ visas; (ii) tandem deployments of partnered couples to the field. Such programmes are the very basic standard in the private sector. e (b) Invest in staff welfare. The provision of basic staff welfare in some of the United Nations most challenging operating environments has been insufficiently addressed. Field staff at all levels told the Group how the lack of decent sanitary conditions, livable accommodation and basic recreational facilities negatively affected retention rates, particularly for women. Without guaranteed access to electricity, potable water, adequate nutrition and the Internet, the United Nations will struggle to attract new recruits. (c) Address security concerns. Security concerns are ever increasing. Every step should be taken to introduce risk mitigation measures and increase compensation to retain key staff, but the Group anticipates a continued challenge to lure high-quality personnel to serve in the most difficult locations. Recommendation 17 Develop a policy framework for rapid deployment (a) Develop a “corporate emergency” model. In emergencies, such as the Haiti earthquake, the Secretary-General needs the ability to recruit new staff, make temporary lateral moves, and ensure that staff are released as requested. Regulation 1.2 (c) of the Staff Regulations of the United Nations provides that “Staff members are subject to the authority of the Secretary-General and to assignment by him or her to any of the activities or offices of the United Nations.” Yet it is unclear exactly how this regulation should be applied. A framework defining the circumstances that qualify as such an emergency would help the Secretariat to respond more effectively. (b) Establish special United Nations system interoperability measures for crisis response . The Office of Human Resources Management, the Department of Field Support and the human resources network of the agencies, funds and programmes should (i) develop a standardized instrument that enables the United Nations to deploy staff from across the entire system in the immediate aftermath of conflict; and (ii) develop a formal roster of such rapidly deployable, interested and __________________ e See, for example, “Better benchmarks for global mobility” (Mercer Consulting), available from www.mercer.com/articles/1377480, or the industry standard, “Benefits Survey for Expatriates and Globally Mobile Employees”, available for purchase from http://www.imercer.com/products/ 2010/benefits-surveys-expat.aspx?menuId=343, or “Global Relocation Trends: Surveying the State of International Relocations”, International HR Journal, winter 1997. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 38 available staff, with their inclusion pre-approved by their managers. The roster should dictate that for the first 90 days all costs fall to the providing organization. (c) Improve administrative interoperability among entities with significant field presences . The High-level Committee on Management and the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination should pursue standardization of processes, agreements and technological interactions, particularly in the areas of travel and payments, in order to facilitate the use of expertise wherever it may lie in the United Nations system. The deployment of an enterprise resource planning system may help in this regard. (d) Develop business plans for start-up and transitions. The business processes for managing mission start-ups and/or transitions are unclear, hampering the Organization’s ability to implement. The Group recognizes that the ongoing work on the global field support strategy may address these issues; it therefore simply requests the Department of Field Support and the Office of Human Resources Management to ensure that there is a clear and transparent process for managing start-up and mission transition. The Group notes with concern, too, the absence of funding mechanisms to automatically staff the Field Personnel Division of the Department of Field Support for recruitment in support of newly established special political missions. The Group urges the Secretary-General to ensure that the Department of Political Affairs has the necessary support to enable special political missions to function effectively. (e) Create clear accountability and time frames for recruitment. Recruitment processes for field personnel should have a clear, mapped business process, with guaranteed time frames, communicated to all applicants automatically. Managers in the Office of Human Resources Management and the Department of Field Support and in the field should be accountable for performance against these deadlines. Conclusions 16. To fulfil the mandates of Member States, the United Nations must be able to attract and retain the best and brightest. To do so, the United Nations Secretariat needs a people-centric approach, which values each individual. A/65/747 S/2011/85 39 11-24080 Annex II Recommendations of the Senior Advisory Group 1. Prioritize national capacities The principle that international capacity is the mechanism of last resort should be explicitly adopted by Member States, the World Bank and the United Nations for their interventions in conflict-affected States. Wherever possible, national actors and institutions should be the primary source of capacity for substantive and non-substantive tasks alike. 2. Revise wages to preserve national capacities The Group recommends that the General Assembly review the wage principles applicable for locally recruited United Nations staff. Those principles, developed in 1949, were not designed to nurture national capacities in conflict-affected States. 3. Co-locate international capacities with national institutions International personnel should be physically co-located within national institutions, as long as their safety and security can be ensured. This principle should be adopted by all international actors in conflict-affected States. For the United Nations, exceptions to this policy should have to be justified. 4. Prioritize women’s need s and use their capacities (a) Women’s needs must feature more prominently in international planning processes. UN-Women should ensure that United Nations planning processes have access to capacities to adequately address gender issues, and should provide advice to Member States seeking to improve their response. (b) Security for women is critical to enabling social and economic recovery. The Group supports the proposed creation of a 20 per cent quota for women in all United Nations police deployments by 2014. Member States are urged to ensure that this goal is met, including through specialized recruitment initiatives. 5. Design procurement for local economic impact United Nations procurement rules should be revised so that they prioritize national capacities and leverage local expertise and comparative advantage where possible. The Group encourages Member States to adopt similar measures. An annual external evaluation should be required of all major peacekeeping operations and field-based special political missions to develop an economic footprint that is as supportive as possible of national capacities. 6. Develop shared guidance on enabling national capacity The Group urges the United Nations, the World Bank, the Working Group on Capacity Development of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding and other relevant actors to work together to develop clear guidance on how best to develop individual, institutional and societal capacities to build a more resilient society. This should include guidance on how national actors can A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 40 exercise oversight over international technical assistance, how to measure progress, and how to identify good practice. 7. Support the United Nations Develop ment Programme and the World Bank work on core government functionality The international community must be able to support Governments emerging from conflict in building the core structures needed for (a) policy management and prioritization; and (b) aid coordination and public financial management. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) needs resources and capacity to support these efforts, but it cannot do this alone. The World Bank has important capacities in these areas, and the Group urges greater cooperation between the two entities. 8. Establish a mechanism to enable and manage partnerships In order to leverage existing and new global capacities, the United Nations needs a docking mechanism to connect to external partners. The Group recommends the establishment of a Civilian Partnerships Cell, housed in the Department of Field Support, in partnership with UNDP, and serving all United Nations field presences in conflict-affected countries. This would be congruent with the global field support strategy. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would: (a) Connect the United Nations in the field to external capacity providers. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would provide to United Nations peacekeeping operations, field-based special political missions and resident coordinators a single point of contact, allowing them to access, select and deploy civilian capacities in Member States, regional and subregional organizations, non-governmental organizations and other roster-holders, based on a field-driven definition of need. (b) Establish long-term relationships with external capacity providers. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would support the cluster leads proposed in recommendation 11 below in establishing legal and administrative mechanisms to enable deployment of capacity from cluster participants (regional and subregional organizations, Member States, non-governmental organizations, etc.) and other external actors. It would also work with cluster leads and United Nations training providers to ensure standards compliance. a The Group urges Member States to begin developing formal agreements with the Civilian Partnerships Cell as soon as feasible. (c) Standardize legal arrangements. The Civilian Partnerships Cell, working with the Office of Legal Affairs and others, should develop standardized memorandums of understanding for use with national, regional and non-governmental partners, drawing on the lessons of the Standby Partnerships Programme of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and the rich experience of agencies, funds and programmes. (d) Manage an internal rapid deployment roster. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would manage an internal United Nations roster for rapid deployments in crises. The creation of such a roster is discussed in detail in annex I. __________________ a United Nations providers include the Integrated Training Service of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the United Nations System Staff College. A/65/747 S/2011/85 41 11-24080 (e) Be accountable. The Civilian Partnerships Cell would be accountable to Member States for geographic diversity and gender balance. Diversity should be a prerequisite for all formal partnerships. (f) Offer its services widely. Where existing mechanisms, particularly within agencies, funds and programmes, are effective and sufficient, they should not be subsumed into the Civilian Partnerships Cell. It would, however, be a resource available to the whole United Nations. 9. Develop a United Nations policy framework for partnership To enable the Civilian Partnerships Cell to function efficiently, the Group proposes the following: (a) Clarify the use of temporary and urgent assistance. General Assembly resolutions govern the use of gratis personnel to provide expertise not available within the Organization and to provide temporary and urgent assistance. b An administrative clarification by the Secretary-General that in the 24 to 36 months after conflict, urgent assistance is appropriate, would provide the requisite flexibility for partnerships to work smoothly. c (b) Expand the use of the experts on mission modality. This modality allows personnel with needed expertise to provide their services to the United Nations while still retaining their link to their regular career. It is a powerful tool for mobilizing expertise, particularly from the global South, and its expansion will help the United Nations source the capacities it needs. (c) Develop civilian support packages. Resources from assessed mission budgets should be available to fund civilian support packages. A civilian support package would be established by a Member State, a regional organization, or a centre of excellence in response to a clear, field-identified need for a group of specialized civilian capacities. These packages would use the existing framework of letters of assist, and be made available to all United Nations field operations where there are critical gaps in civilian capacities. (d) Support enhanced triangular and South-South cooperation. South-South cooperation and triangular mechanisms provide critical short- and longer-term assistance in the aftermath of conflict, as evidenced by the variety of initiatives in which donors have invested heavily. The existing framework within UNDP for South-South cooperation provides a potential reference point on effective mechanisms for doing so. The Group encourages further investment in these mechanisms. (e) Make more effective use of volunteers, particularly United Nations Volunteers . The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme was frequently identified to the Senior Advisory Group as a diverse and field-tested source of capacity. United Nations leaders in the field should make greater use of UNV. In sectors with identified capacity gaps, the Group encourages UNV to develop specialized rosters. Other volunteer mechanisms, such as community-based voluntary action and regional and subregional volunteer rosters, also offer potentially useful capacity. __________________ b Resolutions 51/243 and 52/234. c Such a clarification would supersede ST/AI/1999/6. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 42 (f) Increase private sector partnerships. Private sector expertise, particularly in the areas of natural resources management and private sector development, could benefit conflict-affected communities. The Civilian Partnerships Cell, working with the Office for Partnerships and the United Nations Global Compact, should develop concrete proposals with its partners for providing civilian capacities to field operations in these areas, as well as others where capacity may be found. The Group welcomes the Small and Medium Enterprise Finance Challenge recently launched by the Group of 20, which sought to increase access to scalable credit solutions for small firms, as this is a particular challenge in the area of private sector development in post-conflict contexts. The United Nations should align itself with and support this initiative. (g) Create and/or support of centres of excellence. Centres of excellence could be developed in areas where there is a clear capacity need. These centres could house civilians with highly specialized, in-demand skills such as aid coordination, public administration and security sector reform. Organizations of this sort already exist and partner with the United Nations in areas such as transitional justice, and this model should be expanded. 10. Improve training resources for the global pool of capacity providers The partnership model relies on a minimum threshold of common guidance and support for external actors seeking to work together with the United Nations. In order to help create new pools of capacity, and to promote standards among existing ones, based on the successful models used in peacekeeping, the Group proposes: (a) Define where training is needed. The Integrated Training Service of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the United Nations System Staff College should work with the Office for Human Resources Management, the Department of Field Support, the Civilian Partnerships Cell and the cluster leads, designated in recommendation 11 below, to identify where skills are needed and then either provide training or identify appropriate external trainings. (b) Define standards for training, trainers and trainees. For each area, the United Nations needs clear standards for quality certification. Where work has already begun, these could be developed internally. In other cases, partnerships with universities and other actors could help to define global standards. This information should be freely shared with training centres, universities and private sector actors. (c) Create a certification mechanism. The Integrated Training Service of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the United Nations System Staff College should develop a formal training certification mechanism, operated on a cost-recovery basis, to guarantee programmes of sufficient quality. This mechanism should certify programmes, and eventually trainers. This builds on work done for peacekeeping training centres. (d) Create access to training. (i) Enable peacekeeping training centres to better deliver civilian training. The existing peacekeeping training centres can provide a low-cost option to deliver further civilian training. The General Assembly in its resolution 49/37 encouraged the establishment of peacekeeping training centres, on a national or regional basis as deemed appropriate, for military and civilian personnel. A/65/747 S/2011/85 43 11-24080 Financial support to countries from the global South, coupled with a rigorous certification mechanism for trainers, could help to expand the quantity and quality of civilian training provided by those centres. (ii) Develop global knowledge networks. Professional networks in specialist areas that bridge the United Nations system and its implementing partners are best positioned to develop knowledge management systems and practices. Where these networks are absent, they should be developed and linked to centres of excellence and training centres. (iii) Leverage centres of excellence. Centres of excellence, as recommended in recommendation 9 above, could also offer training. They could be housed in academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, regional or subregional organizations, Governments or even United Nations entities. Each centre should disseminate knowledge between the United Nations, academia and the network of civilian training centres. They could foster professional networks, providing platforms for knowledge-sharing between providers of civilian training. 11. Fix core capacities (a) Establish a cluster system for core areas of activity in the aftermath of conflict . As in the humanitarian system, there should be cluster leads for all areas. In table 2 (see p. 27) are proposed cluster and subcluster leads, based on existing capacities. The World Bank is included among the suggested cluster leads because of the Bank’s substantial capacities in several areas. The Group hopes that the Bank will consider taking on these roles, and suggests that this should be a topic for early discussion between the Secretary-General and the President of the Bank. (b) Define capacities and gaps. Building on the work in the capacity mapping done for this report, d cluster and sub-cluster leads should produce, within 12 months, a revised list of sources of capacity available to deploy in the aftermath of conflict, a typology of capacities applicable to their areas and a list of capacity gaps. Cluster leads should determine which capacities are United Nations core capacities — to be nurtured and enhanced — and which should be secured through external partnerships. (c) Retain flexibility. As in the humanitarian system, the Head of Mission or Resident Coordinator should be free to use either the cluster lead, if it has a viable local presence, or alternative mechanisms. (d) Focus on gender as a cross-cutting issue. UN-Women, as proposed lead for the gender cluster, should identify, in conjunction with cluster members, sectors where specialized gender expertise is needed and could have a concrete impact. (e) Develop terms of reference for the global service provider model. The services offered by global service providers are available across the entire United Nations system, enabling a more flexible United Nations response. The Group proposes that cluster leads should adopt the model of global service providers. However, the model of global service provision is inadequately articulated. The Policy Committee of the Secretary-General should define its terms of reference, covering: __________________ d The capacity mapping can be found at www.civcapreview.org. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 44 (i) Service: how the global service provider would provide its services to missions led by the Department of Political Affairs and those led by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, to non-mission contexts, to regional actors and to Member States; (ii) Partnership: how the global service provider would work with other sources of capacity within the United Nations and externally; (iii) Outreach, training, standards: how the global service provider would ensure diversity, relevance and quality. (f) Invest in training in crisis response skills. There is a lack of training available for crisis-relevant skills. This is exacerbated by the lack of access of field- based special political missions to training. The Integrated Training Service of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and the United Nations System Staff College, within the framework of their new agreement, should ensure that: (i) Cluster leads have technical support to identify externally available trainings, or if necessary develop their own, to improve the quality of capacity and the ability to certify quality; (ii) Field-based special political missions, resident coordinators and their staff have access to relevant training. 12. Create a culture of accountability (a) Increase accountability for implementation. Leadership teams should be held collectively accountable for implementation of their plans. This will help to ensure that plans are viable and reduce the division between support and substantive actors. Directors of mission support must be involved in planning and recognized as critical actors within the mission, accountable directly to heads of mission. (b) Increase accountability for gender equality. The Secretary-General, through UN-Women, should encourage annual independent audits of progress towards gender equality against the indicators set out in his report, e and hold his senior leadership accountable for such progress. (c) Increase accountability for service provision. The scale of the United Nations response requires different parts of the system to work together. Structures of accountability do not hold field leaders accountable for working together, especially when it involves providing services to other United Nations actors. Senior managers’ compacts with the Secretary-General should include accountability for service provision. (d) Create a results-based audit culture that seeks to enable and improve mandate implementation, rather than just punish administrative non-compliance . The primary goal of audits of field activities should be to ensure that, within the context of the rules and regulations laid down by Member States, heads of mission are implementing their mandates as effectively and efficiently as possible. Audits should offer proactive suggestions for how to do so, taking account of available resources. This is the logical and necessary continuation of a cultural shift that began with results-based management. __________________ e S/2010/498. A/65/747 S/2011/85 45 11-24080 (e) Support a systematic tolerance for risk. The Senior Advisory Group welcomes signals of a system-wide platform for risk management, but notes that this must enable leadership in conflict-affected countries to take more risks and to manage them more effectively. Field operations in conflict-affected countries are very different from daily work at Headquarters and require a different approach to risk. 13. Leadership (a) Training for leaders. As well as the right political judgement and professional experience, United Nations leaders must have the necessary administrative knowledge to manage the United Nations response to conflict efficiently and effectively. Currently, the lack of understanding of United Nations rules hampers the ability of field leaders to use the flexibility that exists within the system. The Department of Field Support should strengthen training for all incoming senior leaders (including Special, Executive and Deputy Special Representatives of the Secretary-General as well as Chiefs of Staff) to ensure substantial coverage of support issues (administration, finance, human resources, information technology and communications). This course should be delivered jointly with the senior leader’s respective Director of Mission Support so that specific options for a more responsive mission can be discussed. Issues related to integrating the United Nations support structure on the ground between missions and agencies, funds and programmes should also be addressed in this training. (b) Selection on competence. Member States should support the Secretary- General’s drive to improve United Nations leadership through selection based on competence. 14. Enabling a more nimble response to conflict (a) Create the flexibility required to direct capacity towards needs. The leaders of the United Nations in the field must be able to respond to crises and changing circumstances. To do so, they need the ability to use resources flexibly. Accordingly, within the envelope approved by the General Assembly, the Group proposes that heads of mission should be able to reallocate up to 20 per cent of resources in the budget line for civilian personnel, with only ex post facto justification (equivalent on average to less than 5 per cent of the total budget of a peacekeeping operation). This measure would enable greater use of civilian support packages and the experts on mission modality to address critical capacity gaps. (b) Use the principle of comparative advantage to implement mandates. Only a limited number of tasks should be implemented directly by Secretariat-led operations. Whenever practical and feasible, local capacities should be doing this. Where capacities outside a mission, whether in the agencies, funds and programmes or beyond, have a comparative advantage in implementing a task mandated by the Security Council, the Head of Mission should be able to direct funds to that actor. The United Nations should codify that heads of mission have the flexibility, authority and responsibility to apply this principle. (c) Enable missions to undertake programmatic tasks. When, as in the example of the police above, civilian capacities within the mission have a comparative advantage in implementing a mandated task, heads of mission should be able to provide the necessary programmatic funds from assessed contributions, within the envelope approved by the General Assembly. Where missions undertake A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 46 programmatic activities, they should specify a time horizon and identify successor arrangements. The Group urges the General Assembly to build on existing successful examples from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti and others to expand this initiative for future missions. (d) Develop robust guidance for senior leadership. Guidance and training on how to do this effectively should form a standard part of senior leadership training. In the absence of clear guidance, mission staff and directors of mission support err on the side of caution; this can mean missing opportunities for greater impact and increased efficiency. (e) Recognize the need for flexibility during mission start-up. Current budgetary processes require missions to project needs 18 to 24 months in advance. This is unworkable in the volatile aftermath of conflict. Instead, during mission start-up, the Secretariat should propose more generic budgets to legislative bodies. A definitive budget should follow once national priorities are clearer. The Group urges Member States to accept this evolution as the norm, not the exception, for United Nations field missions in the aftermath of conflict. (f) Harmonize trust fund overheads across the United Nations. The current, punitive overhead of 13 per cent for Secretariat-managed mission trust funds acts as a disincentive to allocate resources based on comparative advantage. A common overhead would be more efficient and encourage the rational allocation of resources. A rate of 7 per cent, commensurate with multi-donor trust funds managed by UNDP, is suggested. In the future, overheads could be lowered further with appropriate economies of scale. The Controller should overhaul mission trust fund management modalities to update them for operations in the aftermath of conflict. This would allow the Peacebuilding Fund, inter alia, to become an additional, complementary source of financing to assessed contributions in the early window of opportunity, able to leverage the civilian capacities within United Nations missions. (g) Improve access to rapid-response financing for agencies, funds and programmes . This should incorporate both elements of the World Food Programme Working Capital Facility, as described above, as well as models based on internal loan facilities and the fast-track procedures of UNDP. Agencies, funds and programmes should present a formal recommendation to their Boards within 12 months of this report. The Group hopes that the World Food Programme and the United Nations Development Programme can assist with this process. 15. Build more attractive career paths to retain and invest in talented staff (a) Expand the experimental rotation programme between the Secretariat, agencies, funds and programmes . While the agencies, funds and programmes have some highly specialized skills, they also have room for generalists with skills similar to those of Secretariat staff members. The Group recommends that the Voluntary Initiative for Network Exchange already under way — which encourages such rotation — be expanded. (b) Extend mobility requirements and make non-Secretariat service count. The Group welcomes recent moves to create mobility requirements for advancement. It notes with concern, however, that service for non-Secretariat United Nations actors does not count as field service by the Secretariat. Field service with any United Nations actor — or indeed any service outside the United A/65/747 S/2011/85 47 11-24080 Nations — should count towards mobility requirements for any United Nations entity and should be formally encouraged. There is also a strong argument to be made for a more robust mobility policy, perhaps one that mandates mobility requirements for all posts at or above the P-4 level in the Departments of Field Support, Political Affairs and Peacekeeping Operations. The areas of mobility and rotation policies offer a particularly high return on investment to adopting such a differentiated approach for field personnel. (c) Improve quality of training. The lack of a structured learning system for operational personnel and an insufficient focus on professional development have hampered the United Nations ability to retain and invest in its key personnel. The Group welcomes the initiatives under way to establish learning environments for operational staff. The Group urges substantive units to dedicate resources to training and thus improve its quality and relevance. (d) Mandate that all staff in the emerging young professionals programme deploy to the field on their first or second rotation . The proposed changes to the programme would provide valuable field experience to interested junior staff early in their career, thus increasing mobility and contributing to a more field-oriented organizational culture in the Secretariat, as well as bringing fresh ideas to the field. The Group welcomes this initiative and hopes it is implemented swiftly. (e) Develop a fast-track career programme. The Group urges the Secretariat to develop a fast-track career programme aimed at recognition, promotion and retention of exceptional talent. Simultaneously, the Secretariat should institute a real performance management system that provides 360-degree accountability and removes non-performing staff. 16. Make staff welfare a higher priority (a) Create family-friendly environments. The United Nations was described by a senior official in the field as a “family un-friendly work environment”. The Group welcomes the ongoing work to harmonize the classification of duty stations, reversing the trend of making almost all Secretariat-led field operations non-family missions. The United Nations should work further towards creating a staff- and family- friendly workplace, including by (i) support for the relocation of family members to nearby countries during service in non-family duty stations, including through support for family members’ visas; (ii) tandem deployments of partnered couples to the field. Such programmes are the very basic standard in the private sector. f (b) Invest in staff welfare. The provision of basic staff welfare in some of the United Nations most challenging operating environments has been insufficiently addressed. Field staff at all levels told the Group how the lack of decent sanitary conditions, livable accommodation and basic recreational facilities negatively affected retention rates, particularly for women. Without guaranteed access to electricity, potable water, adequate nutrition and Internet access, the United Nations will struggle to attract new recruits. __________________ f See, for example, “Better benchmarks for global mobility” (Mercer Consulting), available from www.mercer.com/articles/1377480; or the industry standard, “Benefits Survey for Expatriates and Globally Mobile Employees”, available for purchase from http://www.imercer.com/ products/2010/benefits-surveys-expat.aspx?menuId=343; or “Global Relocation Trends: Surveying the State of International Relocations”, International HR Journal, winter 1997. A/65/747 S/2011/85 11-24080 48 (c) Address security concerns. Security concerns are ever increasing. Every step should be made to introduce risk mitigation measures and increase compensation to retain key staff, but we anticipate a continued challenge to lure high-quality personnel to serve in the most difficult locations. 17. Develop a policy framework for rapid deployment (a) Develop a “corporate emergency” model. In emergencies, such as the Haiti earthquake, the Secretary-General needs the ability to recruit new staff, make temporary lateral moves, and ensure that staff are released as requested. Regulation 1.2 (c) of the Staff Regulations of the United Nations provides that “Staff members are subject to the authority of the Secretary-General and to assignment by him or her to any of the activities or offices of the United Nations.” Yet it is unclear exactly how this regulation should be applied. A framework defining the circumstances that qualify as such an emergency would help the Secretariat to respond more effectively. (b) Establish special United Nations system interoperability measures for crisis response . The Office of Human Resources Management, the Department of Field Support and the human resources network of the agencies, funds and programmes should (i) develop a standardized instrument that enables the United Nations to deploy staff from across the entire system in the immediate aftermath of conflict; and (ii) develop a formal roster of such rapidly deployable, interested and available staff, with their inclusion pre-approved by their managers. The roster should dictate that for the first 90 days all costs fall to the providing organization. (c) Improve administrative interoperability among entities with significant field presences . The High-level Committee on Management and the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination should pursue standardization of processes, agreements and technological interactions, particularly in the areas of travel and payments, in order to facilitate the use of expertise wherever it may lie in the United Nations system. The deployment of an enterprise resource planning system may help in this regard. (d) Develop business plans for start-up and transitions. The business processes for managing mission start-ups and/or transitions are unclear, hampering the Organization’s ability to implement. The Group recognizes that the ongoing work on the global field support strategy may address these issues; we therefore simply request the Department of Field Support and the Office of Human Resources Management to ensure that there is a clear and transparent process for managing start-up and mission transition. The Group notes with concern, too, the absence of funding mechanisms to automatically staff the Field Personnel Division of the Department of Field Support for recruitment in support of newly established special political missions. The Group urges the Secretary-General to ensure that the Department of Political Affairs has the necessary support to enable special political missions to function effectively. (e) Create clear accountability and time frames for recruitment. Recruitment processes for field personnel should have a clear, mapped business process, with guaranteed time frames, communicated to all applicants automatically. Managers in the Office of Human Resources Management and the Department of Field Support and in the field should be accountable for performance against these deadlines.