ADDRESSING UNFPA FIELD SUPPORT NEEDS Programme Division, New York 2012

PROGRAMME DIVISION BACKGROUND  UNFPA Senior Management Meeting in Jordan identified need for strengthened integrated programme, technical and operations support to the field.  Issues of quality and timeliness in existent UNFPA support modalities, including availability of time of staff for field support and inadequate number/level of operations staff, were identified at regional and HQ levels.  ED called for an Interdivisional Support Group in late January 2012, aimed to move forward on developing optimal modalities for field support for UNFPA offices, to be led by the Programme Division.

PROGRAMME DIVISION CURRENT UNFPA FIELD SUPPORT MODALITIES 1.Regional Desk Advisers: Provide RO and CO support. Has mainly been targeted to support the ROs. Support to COs has been based on demand, and has differed from region to region. 2. Field Support through Virtual Mechanisms, including s.  Dedicated Service Desks or Help Lines: Some examples include: the DMS Service Desk, DHR Service Desk and the recent PD Service Desk. An integrated one-stop platform to bring the various pieces together, addressing the challenges, is to be explored.  Webinars and Tele-video conferences. Enable information sharing as well as for answering field queries. E.g. Alignment of the SP and CPDs.  Fusion – Communities of Practice: e.g. Programme, Procurement, M&E, etc. Need to be used further explored for Field Support.

PROGRAMME DIVISION CURRENT UNFPA FIELD SUPPORT MODALITIES  MY UNFPA/Voices: Provides comprehensive communication and knowledge sharing within the Fund. Less a direct support mechanism.  Consultant and institutional rosters: UNFPA globally maintains rosters of vetted consultants and institutions in various areas that field offices can access to meet specific technical assistant needs. A deterrent has been the high costs of international consultants. Could be addressed through resource planning/allocation at the regional level.  Support for the Desk Review of documents: review and technical advisory feedback and comments on draft papers – CPDs, thematic/ policy/strategy papers etc. This has proven to improve the quality of the papers and can further be systematized and institutionalized to ensure timely delivery.  Tools/Job Aids, ‘How-to’ guidance, Good Practices. These exist, but there is an increased need for context – specific “how to guides”, based on CO needs.

PROGRAMME DIVISION CURRENT UNFPA FIELD SUPPORT MODALITIES 3. Field Support through In-Country Mechanisms  Short-term missions by individuals: Consultants, including those through institutional technical collaboration, or UNFPA staff/advisers from global and regional level to provide support in specific areas identified by the field.  Detail Mission Assignments: These are mainly by UNFPA staff from field to HQ or between different country offices as well as to the RO/SRO levels.  Peer-to-Peer support: Among COs, including through more formal SSC mechanisms.  Joint missions by multi-sectoral teams: Multi-sectoral teams from HQ and/or RO, to provide integrated support to country programming processes and implementation.

PROGRAMME DIVISION CURRENT UNFPA FIELD SUPPORT MODALITIES 4. Other Current IT systems for Field Support:  The UNFPA Emergency Fund (EF) Request Management System: This has been initiated, by the humanitarian response branch, for launch this year and will provide an on-line interphase for country offices to submit requests, regional offices to review and headquarters to provide timely support and approvals.  LACRO Technical Assistance Platform: UNFPA in Latin America has developed an IT system for managing technical assistance, that was piloted in 11 countries and is based on the UNFPA Technical Assistance Guidelines issued in  Integrated Programme and Technical Support (IPTS) System SRO Dakar: This system was operationalized in 2011 and 194 requests were received. The system captures all interactions between CO and SRO from inception to request finalization.

PROGRAMME DIVISION Key Issues and Challenges 1.Supply – related:  Initiatives have not completely responded to field demands/needs.  A coordinated institutional mechanism for managing integrated programme, technical, management and operations support is not in place..  There are competency and capacity gaps to respond to CO needs.  New way of delivery promoted by regionalization gave ROs a more oversight role than a country support role, primarily at the technical level.  There needs to be clarity on the roles and the division of labor between ROs, SROs and HQ divisions on field support.  Timeliness and quality of support.  Lack of financial resources for support.

PROGRAMME DIVISION Key Issues and Challenges 2. Demand Related:  Need for a « typology » of support that would result in an integrated and coordinated response.  Short notice for demand, ill articulation, not requesting demand, lack of awareness of gaps.  Some Units do not want to pay for Field Support Costs  Systemic Issues related to Human Resources: non availability of expertise, inadequate organizational structures to meet programme/operational needs.  Organizational Culture: Incentives to promote field support.

PROGRAMME DIVISION OPTIMIZING FIELD SUPPORT IN UNFPA 1.Coordinated/integrated field support would include: Technical, programming and operational support. 2. Key elements for a coordinated field support modality:  Identification of needs.  Define organizational modalities options.  Systems/processes for managing support needs. 3. Identification of Field Support Needs: Demand Driven + proactively identified needs. A clear typology of support would facilitate need identification; integrated demand would lead to an integrated response. E.g. RPM optimum space.

PROGRAMME DIVISION Optimizing Field Support Needs 4. Options for meeting the Field Support Needs:  One Stop Shop: Concentrate all technical, programme and operations support at regional level and strengthen operations in country offices. More staff at RO level to provide support. Challenges include: high costs and inequities in resource allocations across regions. Only specific requests would be channeled through the system to HQ.  Experts for Countries/Country Clusters: Establish teams of experts (national and international) drawn from HQ, RO, CO.  Virtual or In–Country Support through Integrated Support Teams: RO and HQ to serve as brokers or facilitate integrated support teams. Depending on the needs of the countries the teams would be made up of operations, programme, technical, RM/advocacy experts from HQ, RO, COs.

PROGRAMME DIVISION Optimizing Field Support Needs – Options (cont’d)  Brokering Support through Regional/Global Institutions: Mainly for access to cutting edge specialists.  Tapping Resources of other UN Agencies: Pooling resources in areas of joint programmes and partnerships to meet technical support needs in selected areas.  Field Operations Support Teams: current HQ- based regional focal points at HQ, Finance, RM, Communications, Admin, Procurement, etc. to serve as a one stop field operations support team for COs.  Detail Assignment: Establish systematic CO to CO detail assignment scheme, making good use of all national UNFPA staff expertise.

PROGRAMME DIVISION OPTIMIZING FIELD SUPPORT IN UNFPA ADDRESSING FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS: Two options to be explored:  Budget made available at the regional levels for field support needs.  Clear budgetary allocation is made in the country programme during planning for expected support needs of the Programme, as when CST existed.

PROGRAMME DIVISION WAY FORWARD  (Better) Define needs – including through regional planning meetings.  Multipronged approach with combination of options is proposed as the way forward, both virtual and in–country.  Agreements Needed On: Best types of combination of modalities to meet planned as well as emergency field needs and their identification.  Decision on standard one stop model IT system for managing integrated programme, technical and operations field support.

Way Forward  Develop Implementation Plan with timelines and responsibilities among IDG members and others for operationalizing agreements related to the deliverables.  Including:  Support modalities to be developed/strengthened.  Clarify typology of support, division of labor between CO, RO and HQ levels for different field support needs; format for planning annual field support needs including pro active areas of support.  Designation/listing of UNFPA staff/teams focal points to provide support in the context of agreed typology ( global, regional, country).  Strengthening and building rosters for detail assignments, consultants, institutions.  Integrated IT Platform for managing field support.  Others?