UNESCO: Status of Improvements in Management Personnel, Financial, and Budgeting Practices
NSIAD-92-172
Published: Jun 09, 1992. Publicly Released: Jun 25, 1992.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected Sort descending | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To further the process of decentralization, the UNESCO Director General should develop criteria laying out the factors and conditions under which activities and resources should be decentralized. |
Closed – Not Implemented
Because of budgetary constraints, decentralization is no longer possible. Rather, retrenchment to a central location is necessary.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To further the process of decentralization, the UNESCO Director General should complete the country databases that would be necessary to develop operational plans for decentralizing. |
Closed – Implemented
Country databases use existing on-line information from other organizations.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To further the process of decentralization, the UNESCO Director General should develop operational plans that would lay out specifics for decentralization, including what activities and resources to decentralize, where to locate those resources, and what time frames to follow. |
Closed – Not Implemented
Because of budgetary constraints, decentralization is no longer possible. Rather, retrenchment to a central location is necessary.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To more effectively plan, execute, and monitor UNESCO programs, the UNESCO Director General should develop and implement a system of computer coding that allows activities to be tracked and monitored from biennium to biennium. |
Closed – Implemented
The tracking system is in place and is being used for the 1994-95 budget.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To more effectively plan, execute, and monitor UNESCO programs, the UNESCO Director General should ensure that work plans and other planning documents include expected impact, quantitative indicators for measuring success, and specific target groups. |
Closed – Implemented
The Central Evaluation Unit has trained staff to specify objectives and impact indicators.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To more effectively plan, execute, and monitor UNESCO programs, the UNESCO Director General should develop an evaluation plan that ensures a representative selection of UNESCO programs is evaluated and that specifies the scheduling of evaluations, funding source for the evaluations, and who will do the evaluation. |
Closed – Implemented
The 1992-1993 plan has been completed and the 1994-1995 plan is being drafted.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To ensure that personnel reform efforts continue and improve, the UNESCO Director General should continue to monitor progress through periodic external reviews. |
Closed – Implemented
The external review indicates significant reforms are on track.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To ensure that personnel reform efforts continue and improve, the UNESCO Director General should develop a unified personnel database that is accurate, complete, and includes regular and supplementary staff in all locations and from all sources of funding. |
Closed – Implemented
The unified database is in operation.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | To ensure that personnel reform efforts continue and improve, the UNESCO Director General should develop procedural checklists for the application of the rules on consultants, supernumeraries, and fee contracts to better control the contract authorization procedure and make it more transparent and uniform. |
Closed – Implemented
A checklist is in use as part of the contract authorization form.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | The UNESCO Director General should further improve the UNESCO budget presentation by ensuring that a table comparing budgeted to actual expenditures by object of expenditure be included in a draft of the budget presentation for the governing bodies. |
Closed – Implemented
A table comparing planned and actual expenditures for 1992 has been presented to the Executive Board.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | The UNESCO Director General should further improve the UNESCO budget presentation by elaborating on the difference between the constant rate of exchange and the actual rate in effect when the budget is published and adding a footnote in the summary budget table denoting the changes in exchange rates. |
Closed – Implemented
GAO recommendations were carried out in the 1994-95 budget.
|
| United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization | The UNESCO Deputy Director General for Management should ensure that payroll controls contain a positive verification of hours worked, such as employees recording and signing a schedule of work hours and having a supervisor verify it as correct. When this is not possible, some alternative, such as determining reasonableness of work output for time spent, should be used to provide reasonable assurance that employees are working when scheduled. |
Closed – Implemented
UNESCO has adopted and is using a system much like GAO's system for time and attendance.
|
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Topics
DecentralizationFinancial managementForeign aid programsFuture budget projectionsInternal controlsInternational cooperationInternational organizationsInternational relationsPersonnel managementProgram management