January 01, 2026 -
The National Personnel Services Agreement (NPSA) policy has been revised, with main changes in the following areas:- Changes to conditions of service, such as applicability of flexible working arrangements to PSAs; sick leave entitlement inclusive of uncertified sick leave days.
- Changes to contractual status, such as discontinuation of the maximum duration of contract; restrictions on simultaneous contracts to be held by one person; addition of termination indemnity for short-term PSAs, in case of termination without cause by UNDP; discontinuation of the payout of annual leave upon separation; and shortening of break-in-service between FTA to PSA from 1 month to 2 weeks.
- Expansion of the use of PSAs, permitting the use of NPSAs for professional and support roles in functions, within an office/bureau/project or as a shared service, which may otherwise be outsourced to a company.
- Detailed provisions on competitive selection process for PSAs have been removed from the policy, and now are provided in a separate Guidance on Competitive Selection Procedures for PSAs.
- The Guide on Using Contractual Modalities has been updated to align with the revised policy.
p tag used here for line break
March 26, 2025 -
The National Personnel Services Agreement policy has been revised in Annex I: Recruitment standards and procedures for NPSAs, Assessment procedures section, paragraph A: Interview panel to clarify the necessary composition for interview panels as well as the levels and roles of other recruitment collaborators.
p tag used here for line break
January 16, 2023 -
The National Personnel Services Agreement (NPSA) policy has been reformatted and amended in the following areas:• Clarification of general conditions and legal status of NPSAs
• Clarification of selection process for different types of NPSAs
• Duration of regular and short-term NPSAs
• Provisions related to issuance of regular NPSAs
• Clarification that NPSAs are not Internal candidates for UNDP staff vacancies
• Process for making modification to NPSA functions
• Conditions for parental leave for birth parents during the first year of the NPSA contract
• Conditions for NPSAs to take unpaid leave
• Confirmation that NPSAs can undertake detail assignments
• Provision of flexibility for NPSAs serving on national Implementation projects
• Possibility for creation of special NPSA remuneration Scales under certain conditions
• Extension of overtime entitlement to NPSA levels 4 to 7
p tag used here for line break
January 09, 2023 -
The policy has been updated to reflect UNDP's transition to its new cloud-based management platform Quantum in January 2023, replacing its previous ATLAS system.
p tag used here for line break
June 01, 2021 -
The National Personnel Services Agreement (NPSA) is a new policy intended to improve and align the conditions of national personnel globally. It provides for inclusion of NPSA holders through access to training, learning and career opportunities, and provides for a fair and consistent set of benefits equal to all NPSA holders globally in terms of annual leave, sick leave, lump sum towards pension schemes of choice, possibility for commutation of annual leave to cash, to mention a few. It also provides for a lighter administration of contracts, for example, by using existing salary-setting methodologies to minimize administration, but also to ensure consistent levels of classification across all modalities.
p tag used here for line break