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As you are aware, all UN duty stations other than those classified as category "H" are classified according to conditions of life and work as they pertain to the internationally recruited staff. This classification, known as the hardship classification, has a direct impact on the amount of the hardship allowance paid to international staff serving in the duty stations concerned.

While duty stations may be reviewed in any year at the request of the duty station (e.g. when conditions have changed dramatically), each and every duty station is reviewed at least once every three years. These reviews are known as "mandatory reviews".

The classification of duty stations is primarily based on the information provided by the duty station itself through the completion of a comprehensive questionnaire, precisely because it is important to capture how conditions impact on the staff serving at the duty station.

However, since a number of duty stations do not, in fact, submit questionnaires in a timely manner, these mandatory reviews cannot always be performed as they should be, and the result is that hardship classifications may remain un-reviewed for long periods of time. This undermines the credibility of the hardship scheme, and introduces inequities in the payment of hardship allowances across duty stations.

The deadline for the submission of questionnaires for the 2010 mandatory review was 15 August 2010. A large number of duty stations did not respond.

MARKING WORLD HUMANITARIAN DAY, UN LAUDS HEROIC EFFORTS ON THE FRONT LINES

The United Nations will mark the second-ever World Humanitarian Day on Thursday by paying tribute to the life-saving work carried out by aid workers around the globe, often in perilous places, to help those whose lives have been torn asunder by conflict, natural disasters and other crises.

Events will be held at UN offices and peacekeeping missions worldwide, with many focusing on those personnel at the front lines who have been killed in the cause of assisting people in need.

Last year, 102 humanitarian workers lost their lives, compared with 30 deaths among aid workers in 1999. In addition, nearly 280 aid workers were victims of security incidents, more the quadruple the number one decade ago.

The General Assembly proclaimed 19 August as World Humanitarian Day two years ago to commemorate the 2003 Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad, which claimed the lives of 22 UN staff members, including the world body’s top envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and wounded more than 150 people.

This session was particularly onerous and some of the outcomes were quite disappointing for staff.  This was most notably the case concerning the allowance for a second household for staff assigned to non-family duty stations.  As the Commission did not approve the proposals made by the ICSC technical working group (ICSC/71/R.16), the Commission retired to private sessions to work out a solution. After a week of discussions in private, informal and plenary sessions, the result of “harmonization” was a new allowance for peacekeeping staff, which satisfied the UN administration, but at the same time seriously let down the organizations currently using the Special Operations Approach (SOA). If approved by the General Assembly, staff in organizations currently applying the SOA scheme would see the allowance for a second household reduced by up to more than 60% between now and 2015. This move will likely make it more difficult for the specialized agencies to recruit staff for work in non-family duty stations while at the same time facilitating recruitment for peacekeeping positions. Ironically, it is just this type of competition between agencies that the so-called ‘harmonization’ of conditions of service is meant to prevent! FICSA has its advocacy work cut out for itself as a strong campaign against the reduced allowance will need to target this year’s Fifth Committee representatives.

11th Annual Conference of Staff Associations of International Organizations (CSAIO).

European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)

385, route de Meyrin

Geneva, Switzerland

Tuesday 28 October (Afternoon) and Friday 29 October 2010