Abuse of authority is the improper use of a position of influence, power or authority by UNDP personnel against UNDP or external personnel or a group thereof. This includes situations when the person in question uses their influence, power or authority to arbitrarily influence the career or employment conditions (including, but not limited to, appointment, assignment, contract renewal, performance evaluation or promotion) of other UNDP or external personnel. Abuse of authority can include a one-time incident or a series of incidents. It may also consist of conduct that creates a hostile or offensive work environment, which includes, but is not limited to, the use of intimidation, threats, blackmail or coercion.
Components or systems described as accepted or supported are not primary options, but are considered fully in line with UNDP ICT standards. Accepted or supported components are not mandatory.
The AAA report is designed to provide Country Offices with a tool to analyze balance sheet accounts. The report gives details of all transactions from various modules for a given account and Operating Unit (OU) for a chosen period. The report selects activities from source systems (AP, AR, GL, etc.) within a fiscal year based on the posting date of the journal tied to the activity. The report can be run for the OU, specified on the run control. Country offices should run generally for one OU only. Upon select account 16005, this report provides all movements in the account by Operating Unit/ Project and or Fund for a specific accounting period.
Accountability is the obligation to (i) demonstrate that work has been conducted in accordance with agreed rules and standards and (ii) report fairly and accurately on performance results vis-à-vis mandated roles and/or plans.
An Accounts Payable invoice must be fully processed in order to be correctly recorded in Projects and the General Ledger (GL). An invoice needs to be fund reserved in order for it to record in budget control.An Accounts Payable (AP) voucher records a liability due to a vendor and expense against a given Chart of Account.
Ad-hoc services may be required or requested in certain circumstances, for instance the provision of legal advice or representation on an agreement or case,1 enhanced local security services for movement of cash in countries without banking facilities, or other services such as advisory support. Ad-hoc services are not included in the UPL and should be managed based on a Local Price List (LPL) or other locally negotiated prices using transparent, prevailing market rates or on the existing guiding costing methodology (Annex 1) and set out in a local price list and agreed locally between the parties.
Adjusted Risk Rating is defined as the Overall Risk Assessment derived from the Micro Assessment adjusted for other available information including: results of the Macro Assessment; past experience with the Partner, prior capacity assessments and micro assessments by other agencies.
Encompasses critical systems of internal control that complement and ensure the proper functioning of checks and balance, including financial ones. These include international civil service standards and incentives, ethics codes, criminal penalties, and administrative review.
Administrative leave is an exceptional status provided for by Staff Rule 10.4 in which a staff member may be suspended from performing his or her functions. A staff member may be placed on administrative leave, subject to conditions specified by the Administrator, at any time from the receipt of an allegation of misconduct and prior to the initiation of an investigation, through the course of an investigation until the completion of disciplinary proceedings as appropriate. Administrative leave can be with pay (ALWP), with partial pay or without pay (ALWOP).
Advance payments received by a staff member from the Organization that are authorized under the UN Staff Regulations and Staff Rules and relevant policies;
An Agency for which the Vendor Review Committee (VRC) has determined that Proscribed Practices took place in respect of one or more of its procurement activities.
Agency implementation is one of the four modalities available to UNDP for the implementation of projects and programmes. A UN agency may be either an Implementing Partner (accountable for the delivery of overall results in a programme or project) or a Responsible Party (accountable for delivery of elements of a programme or project).
Assigned UNDP individuals, acting as liaison with UNDSS CATSU and are responsible for responding to questions relating to air travel safety in accordance with the UNSMS Commercial Air Travel Safety Policy and these guidelines. Based on available information, ATSFPs prepare an analysis and provide a recommendation to UNDP units on the use of airlines not on UNDP booking list.
A financial authorization issued by the Administrator to an official or to a unit to incur commitments for specific purposes relating to the institutional budget and within specified limits, during a definite period;
Amortization is the systematic allocation of the amortizable amount of an Intangible Asset over its useful life. Amortization expenses the cost of the asset in equal instalments (Straight line method of amortization) over the life of the asset, rather than when the asset is paid. Amortization is the systematic allocation of the amortizable amount of an Intangible Asset over its useful life. Amortization expenses the cost of the asset in equal instalments (Straight line method of amortization) over the life of the asset, rather than when the asset is paid for. Amortizable amount is the cost of an asset, or other amount substituted for cost, less its residual value and Residual value of an asset is the estimated amount that would currently be obtained from disposal of the asset, after deducting the estimated costs of disposal, if the asset were already of the age and in the condition expected at the end of its useful life. In UNDP all intangibles will have a zero residual life.
Annual leave is granted by UNDP to provide staff members with periods of time off from work at full pay for personal reasons and for purposes of health, rest and recreation. Subject to the exigencies of service, staff members are expected to exercise their leave within the period in which it is earned.
In line with the UN Staff Regulations and Rules, an annual performance review (referred to in Paragraph 11) will take place to evaluate the performance of the staff members during the year, confirm the achievement of agreed goals and other performance expectations, demonstrated.
The annual planning process starts with the preparation of an Annual Business Plan, which establishes corporate annual priorities to achieve results established in the Strategic Plan. Annual Business Plan priorities cascade throughout the organization through integrated workplans.
The Application Development Lifecycle (ADL) typically encompasses a six-step process starting with analysis, then wireframing before moving into design and development followed by deployment and maintenance.
A subdivision of the appropriations for which a specific amount is shown in the appropriate decision and within which the Administrator is authorized to make transfers without prior approval;
The total amount approved by the Executive Board for specified purposes for the current institutional budget against which commitments may be incurred for those purposes up to the amounts so approved. The appropriations are divided into “appropriations lines”, for each of which a specific amount is shown in the appropriate decision adopted for each budget period by the Executive Board and within which the Administrator is authorized to make transfers without prior approval.
Deals with the preservation and maintenance of non-current records on a temporary or permanent/indefinite basis in accordance with an established retention schedule. The public record of UNDP should be electronic whenever possible, and should be stored in UNDP official systems.
Area Security Coordinators (ASC) are staff members appointed in writing by the DO, in consultation with the SMT, in areas of larger countries which are separated from the capital in terms of both distance and exposure, in order to coordinate and control security arrangements applicable to all personnel, premises and assets in their area of responsibility. ASCs are accountable to the DO for their security-related responsibilities, in accordance with their respective letters of appointment. ASCs may be UNDP staff members.
Is the process of collecting, preserving and securing basic evidence, and the evaluation of this evidence to determine whether an investigation into reported allegations of wrongdoing is warranted
In the HACT framework, these refer to planned activities used to determine whether funds transferred to implementing partners were used for their intended purpose and in accordance with the annual work plan.
The role of the Audit and Evaluation Advisory Committee (AEAC) as an independent body is to assist the Administrator in fulfilling responsibilities regarding oversight, financial management and reporting; internal audit and investigation, external audit; risk management; the evaluation and ethics functions, and systems of internal control and accountability. The primary role of the Committee is to advise the Administrator, taking into consideration the Financial and Staff Regulations and Rules as well as policies and procedures applicable to UNDP (including UNV) and its operating environment, as well as one of its affiliates, the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). The AEAC makes recommendations to the Administrator, including on the strategy and workplans of the independent offices as well as on the appointment, performance evaluation, extension and dismissal of the heads of those offices.
Authenticity. An electronic signature is considered to be authentic if it can be proved that the electronic signature was not modified, altered or otherwise compromised after it was placed. The authenticity of an electronic signature is established by the following parameters: i. Association of the electronic signature with a signatory; ii. Indication of the date and time of the electronic signature.
“Authority” refers to the power or decision making rights of an individual by virtue of his/her appointment and/or as appropriately delegated to him/her.
Any authorized user of UNDP ICT resources. May be a staff member, contract holder, intern, UN Volunteer, a member of another UN agency using UNDP ICT resources or other any other third party using UNDP ICT resources.
A centralized process that auto-matches Quantum transactions against the bank statements loaded into Quantum via Treasury Management System (TMS) payment hub.
Azure DevOps collaboration tools includes customizable team dashboards with configurable widgets to share information, progress, and trends, built-in wikis for sharing information, and configurable notifications.
Any data or information, regardless of its form or medium, which is or has been electronically generated by, transmitted via, received by, processed by, or represented in an ICT resource.
A room or a set of rooms along with wiring closets where working equipment used to deliver ICT systems and infrastructure is sited (e.g. server room, UPS room, LAN closet, etc).
A set of ICT systems, communications cabling, and power supplies along with environmental support like equipment racks or cooling system installed in the ICT facility of the corresponding office or reasonably close to it.
An employee or contractor who is responsible according to the terms of reference for planning, architecting, deploying, maintaining supporting and improving overall ICT infrastructure and its components in the corresponding office.
ICT resource: any tangible or intangible asset capable of generating, transmitting, receiving, processing, or representing data in electronic form, where the asset is owned, licensed, operated, managed, or made available by, or otherwise used by, the United Nations;
Hardware, software and firmware of computers, telecommunications and network equipment or other electronic information handling systems and associated equipment. ICT systems include any equipment or interconnected systems or subsystems of equipment that are used in the acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission or reception of data/information. [ISO/IEC 24762:2008]
The management and delivery of project activities to achieve specified results including the procurement and delivery of UNDP project activity inputs and their use in producing outputs, as set forth in a signed document, the Annual Work Plan, between UNDP and the Implementing Partner.
According to Article 17 of UNDP’s financial regulations, an implementing partner is “the entity to which the Administrator has entrusted the implementation of UNDP assistance specified in a signed document along with the assumption of full responsibility and accountability for the effective use of UNDP resources and the delivery of outputs, as set forth in such document.
The Independent Evaluation Office is a functionally independent unit within UNDP that supports the oversight and accountability functions of the Executive Board and the management of UNDP, UNCDF and UNV. The structural independence of the Office underpins and guarantees its freedom to conduct evaluations and report evaluation results to the Executive Board. The main role of Office is to conduct independent evaluations according to the plans and costed programmes of work approved by the Executive Board.
The costs incurred by the organization in support of programmes or projects that cannot be directly attributed to such specific programmes or projects.
An individual contractor is an individual engaged by the Organization from time to time under a temporary contract to provide expertise, skills or knowledge for the performance of a specific task or piece of work, which would be short-term by nature, against the payment of an all-inclusive fee. The work assignment may involve full-time or part-time functions similar to those of staff members, such as the provision of translation, editing, language training, public information, secretarial or clerical and part-time maintenance services or other functions that could be performed by staff. An individual contractor need not work on United Nations premises.
A formal declaration following the decision of the CPO that a Respondent is ineligible for a period of time to (a) be awarded and/or partake in contracts financed, administered or executed by UNDP, (b) conduct new business with UNDP as an agent or representative of other vendors, (c) partake in having discussions with UNDP regarding new contracts. Exceptionally, the ineligibility may be permanent.
The Ineligibility List is a central roster, hosted and maintained confidentially by the United Nations Global Marketplace (UNGM) as a protected electronic document that aggregates information provided by each participating entity, including UNDP. Vendors that are subject to sanctions that affect their eligibility, pursuant to sanctions proceedings, shall be entered into the Ineligibility List for a term starting upon notification of the CPO’s decision and ending once they are deemed to be rehabilitated. The Ineligibility List shall have restricted access, and shall not be published or otherwise distributed.
A Vendor who has been debarred by UNDP, and either (1) is the subject of a current period of debarment; or (2) has not requested to be reinstated as an active Vendor via a request for rehabilitation.
In general, raw data that (1) has been verified to be accurate and timely, (2) is specific and organized for a purpose, (3) is presented within a context that gives it meaning and relevance, and which (4) leads to increase in understanding and decrease in uncertainty. The value of information lies solely in its ability to affect a behavior, decision, or outcome. [www.businessdictionary.com]
Information Technology Infrastructure are the components required to operate and manage enterprise IT environments, which includes hardware, software, networking components, an operating system (OS), and data storage, all of which are used to deliver IT services and solutions.
Innovation challenges are defined as prized challenges that Business Units (Country Offices) organize to solicit innovative ideas and solutions to address development challenges which cannot be achieved through traditional solicitation processes.
Innovation challenges solicit ideas and solutions to address development challenges. Innovation challenges: (a) often include stakeholders who are not necessarily affected by the development challenge, but well placed to develop solutions, including private sector actors; (b) typically limit themselves to the generation or testing of ideas, but not their implementation; (c) can be awarded directly by the head of office for grants up to $40,000 without further review. See the policy on innovation challenges. 29. Innovation challenges can be done in projects directly implemented by UNDP or when UNDP provides support services to national implementation (COS services). Low-value grants can be used in parallel to other engagement types with responsible parties or as part of a dedicated grant project.
Inputs are the personnel (including staff, service contract holders, UN Volunteers and consultants), goods, services, partnerships and low-value grants required to produce planned outputs. Inputs are obtained on the basis of the project workplan and the corresponding budget. Where the progress towards planned outputs is not advancing as expected, the project board should review the strategy of the project, including the workplan, budget and inputs.
Covers the estimates as approved by the Executive Board relating to the activities and associated costs in the cost categories of development effectiveness, United Nations Development Coordination, management and special purpose.
Institutional effectiveness projects manage inputs and activities that enable UNDP to contribute to development results. This type of project does not require a project document and can operate on a continuing basis. An annual workplan and budget must be prepared and approved by staff with appropriate delegation of authority
Instructions to Offerors/Proposers – the complete set of documents which provides Offerors/Proposers with all information needed and procedures to be followed in the course of preparing their Offer/Proposal.
Intangible Assets are the non-physical items of value that UNDP owns. The defining characteristics of an Intangible Asset are the lack of physical existence (cannot be touched), and having no set monetary value. They cannot be seen or touched, but are nonetheless important to UNDP’s success. Intangible Assets may be internally generated, such as internally developed software, or acquired from external sources e.g. goodwill (which may not apply to UNDP), or brand name e.g. If UNDP uses a reputable trademark in implementing one of its projects.
The primary inter-agency mechanism for the HACT framework at HQ level is the HACT Advisory Committee. It serves in an advisory capacity only, providing inter-agency policy advice, technical guidance and support to agencies implementing the HACT framework. The committee consists of individuals from finance and programme units from the various agencies.
A temporary suspension of a Vendor’s eligibility to participate in new procurement processes, as further described in paragraph 66 of the Vendor Sanctions Policy to protect UNDP’s interests pending the completion of either an investigation into Proscribed Practices or the VRC process. Interim suspensions are internal measures that are not reported on the UNGM.
Internal audit report means the final report resulting from an audit signed by the Director of the Office of Audit and Investigations and issued to the Administrator and the auditees for their consideration and for the implementation of recommendations. The report is also provided to the UN Board of Auditors.
Internal control is a process, effected by a governing body, management or other personnel of an organization, designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of objectives in the categories of (i) effectiveness and efficiency of operations, (ii) reliability of financial reporting, and (iii) compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
The Internal Control Framework covers key control factors such as planning, monitoring, communication, policies, procedures, segregation of duties, individual authorities and accountabilities that combined, inter alia: safeguard assets from inappropriate use and loss from fraud and error; help ensure the quality of internal and external reporting, through the maintenance of proper records and information flows; facilitate compliance with applicable laws, regulations and internal policies.