STU/67th Council/16/020
14 October 2016
200th Session of the Executive Board of UNESCO
Document 200 EX/5
Follow-Up to Decisions and resolutions adopted by the Executive Board and
the General Conference
at their previous sessions
Part IV
Human Resources Issues
ORAL STATEMENT BY THE UNESCO STAFF UNION (STU)
Thank you Mrs Chairperson, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
First, STU would like to express its deep concern about the abuse of non- staff contracts over the long term , many of them for performing core functions of the Organization.
A 21% increase in the overall spending on consultant contracts between 2014 and 2015 clearly indicates that the Organization does not have sufficient resources to implement its core mandate. Furthermore, it should be noted that the total spending on consultant contracts financed by the Regular Programme between 2014 and 2015 rose by 74% , with a 91% increase in the Field!
In addition to the financial cost, this situation has very adverse consequences: introduction of different staff status, leading to discriminatory and unfair treatment of temporary staff and undermining the moral of all staff; resort personal favoritism; non-compliance to the norms of geographical distribution and to the independence of the international civil service; loss of the institutional memory of the Organization; risk of the long-term financial sustainability of the Medical Benefits Fund of the increase of the number of these temporary contractors.
In addition to the abuse of non-staff contracts over a long term, there exist abuses in the internship programme as well. The STU believes that interns, of which there 500 at the present time according to HRM itself, should be remunerated fairly, as is the case in many United Nations agencies, and that their tasks be clearly defined.
Thus, we believe that the break-even point for adoption of immediate measures to stop this malpractice has come.
Concerning the human resources management strategy for 2017-2022 , the STU strongly believes that the greatest resource of UNESCO is a skilled, motivated and dedicated workforce. However, the STU can attest that the staff is demotivated and is the entity which has suffered the most from the financial crises and the reform. Therefore, the STU calls for a stable corporate training budget financed by the regular programme.
The STU is alarmed at the lack of career development option for the GS staff with average time spent on the same post being 8.3 years in comparison with 6 years for P5 and 6.4 years organization wide.
Once more, the STU requests that the recruitment procedures should be revised in order to ensure equity, fairness and transparency at every step of the recruitment process, to avoid biased procedures which lead systematically to staff demoralization/demotivation.
At the 199th session of the Executive Board, the STU was worried that a part of the decision by the last General Conference on the recruitment of vacant posts (“Staff members shall be given priority of consideration for vacant posts on the basis of equal competence”) would not be implemented, and that acquired staff rights would not be protected. The reality of recruitments regrettably gives us reason: from 1 January to 20 September 2016, 69 external candidates were recruited , whereas internal candidates were often not even interviewed, thus perpetuating a high percentage of demotivated staff with no prospects for career development.
Therefore, the STU urges the Director-General to develop a real human resources management policy for UNESCO for 2017-2022 , with clear goals and mechanisms, in which all levels of hierarchy become accountable for their responsibilities in human resources management, including knowledge and skills development, career development planning and transparent mobility and recruitment processes.
Thank you for your attention.