The UN MEDEVAC Mechanism serves as an example of a successful One UN partnership between numerous entities to design, resource, and implement a system-wide medical evacuation framework in the face of the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. Complementing First Line of Defense (FLOD) activities, COVID-19 MEDEVAC is a last resort, which provides life-saving support for severely ill COVID-19 patients who require a level of care not available at their location. This ensures that UN personnel, partners, and their dependents can continue to stay and deliver.
Secretary-General signs the statement on internal control for 2023 operations
On 2 October 2024 the Secretary-General signed the fourth iteration of the statement on internal control for all operations of the Secretariat for 2023.
The statement on internal control is a public accountability document that provides reasonable assurance that the Secretariat operated under an effective system of internal control during 2023. The scope of the statement, which is based on the COSO internal control-integrated framework, covers the three categories of objectives which allow the Organization to focus on differing aspects of internal control: operations, reporting and compliance.
Following a similar process to the previous years, the Financial Policy and Internal Control Service (FPICS), in the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance (DMSPC), supported entities from across the Secretariat to achieve greater accountability for results through a comprehensive self-assessment exercise to review the effectiveness and functioning of applicable entity-level and activity-level internal controls. In a signed assurance statement, heads of entity reaffirmed their continued commitment to ensuring the effective and efficient functioning of internal controls in the entity for which they received delegated authority and committed to taking any action necessary to strengthen internal controls across the Organization. These entity assessments, and the review of the results and assurance statements, formed the basis for the fourth iteration of the statement.
The statement on internal control is a very important step towards a more systematic and integrated approach to managing risk as well as to ensuring the optimal use of resources, improving the Secretariat’s effectiveness and increasing confidence in the Organization.
Every year, the statement on internal control will reflect on specific areas where opportunities for improvement were identified. In the 2023 statement on internal control, the eight areas identified in previous statements were maintained: property management; advance purchase of air travel tickets; talent acquisition processes; personal data protection and privacy; monitoring and evaluation of programme and project implementation; management of workplace conduct and discipline; cybersecurity, and implementation of the Office of Internal Oversight Services’ recommendations.
No new areas were identified in the context of the 2023 exercise.
For more information on this initiative, please send a message to oppfb-internal-control@un.org.
Updates
The global human resources strategy of 2019-21 set a goal to become “simplified, decentralized, flexible, and field-oriented” in order to drive strategic human resources management and empower managers.
Then COVID-19 exposed an overreliance on physical paperwork and signatures in our human resource management. Adopting electronic signatures and migrating paper-based forms into digital systems will help the United Nations strengthen its ability to manage human resources in an ever-changing world.
It might seem like critical situations or incidents should be second nature in the United Nations, yet sometimes capacities are stretched beyond any norm or barriers to reallocation of resources put up obstacles. As part of management reform, a dedicated capacity in the Department of Operational Support was created to support the start-up, surge, or closure of Secretariat entities, as well as to better respond to critical incidents.
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