UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed the creation of a common administrative platform to provide administrative services to UN Secretariat entities located in each duty station as an effort to improve efficiency and reduce costs across the UN system.
Its creation would begin with the New York and Bangkok stations, Guterres told the Fifth Committee of the UN General Assembly while formally introducing a revised estimates report relating to the proposed program budget for 2026 and the support account for peacekeeping operations for the 2025/26 period, Xinhua news agency reported.
"This represents a considerable improvement of our efficiency, putting together what is done separately by different entities with naturally much more costs, " the UN chief said.
He also proposed the consolidation of payroll processing into a single global team operating across three centers -- UN Headquarters, the Regional Service Centre in Entebbe, and the United Nations Office at Nairobi.
In addition, Guterres proposed a systematic review by entities in New York and Geneva of functions that could be performed effectively in lower cost duty stations.