16th Meeting of Senior Fellowships Officers of the ... - Development

Operational Issues 19
report of the Inter-Agency Procurement Services Office (IAPSO) on training in order
for Fellowships Officers to identify the specific data variables to be collected and published.
Mr. Rudi referred the participants to the most recent report of the Executive
Board of the UNDP and UNFPA dated 3 August 2006 which stated: “IAPSO continues
its efforts in supplier development and inter-agency coordination functions such as the
development and maintenance of the United Nations Global Marketplace and the collection
and publication of United Nations procurement statistics.” 11 Basically, this in itself was a
confirmation that the annual report of IAPSO was part of its mandate. The data that
agencies provided to IAPSO on trainees were used as input to the Annual Statistical
Report which was prepared for the UN General Assembly and the UNDP Executive
Board. The report had a wide circulation among donors, programme countries, Permanent
Missions, libraries, research centers, etc. In February 2005, IAPSO requested
DESA, among other agencies, to submit data on personnel components for 2004. This
data was made available in due time. In this connection, agencies were encouraged to
continue to comply with the IAPSO requirement.
Recommendation 11:
UN/DESA Should Transmit to UNDP Country Offices the Harmonized Policies,
Procedures and Entitlements
65. Mr. Rudi pointed out that the above recommendation was very pertinent in order to
bring on board every partner across the United Nations system. All Senior Fellowships
Officers were aware of the important role which the UNDP country offices played
in the administration and implementation of the fellowships programmes at country
level. The effort toward inter-agency harmonization and coherence would not be successful
if the UNDP country offices were not engaged. To that effect, the Focal Point
had already submitted the recommendations of both the 14th and 15th Meetings to
the UNDP Headquarters for transmittal to its field offices. In addition, UN/DESA
had notified all the UNDP country offices which administer its fellows to refer to the
DESA Fellowships Website in order to obtain the monthly stipend rates whenever they
pay stipends to the fellows.
66. Other Tasks Performed by DESA as Focal Point: Following the 15th Meeting in
Geneva, the first pressing task for DESA was the preparation and publishing of the
final report. Listening to and transcribing the audio-tapes, preparing and editing
the draft and finally sending it to print required a considerable amount of time as
well as human and financial resources. Therefore, it took several months for DESA
to have the report published at a price tag of $1,100. DESA sent copies of the report
to all the agencies immediately thereafter. It was worth underlying that parallel to
the final report DESA also prepared a Booklet for Fellowships Officers containing
the harmonized policies, procedures and entitlements on Fellowships, Study Tours
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Document DP/2006/39