US embassy cable - 05GENEVA1604

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 GENEVA 001604 
 
SIPDIS 
 
PRM/MCE AND REFCOORDS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF, UNHCR 
SUBJECT: UNHCR: MANAGEMENT PRIORITIES FOR 2006 DESCRIBED 
DURING DONOR CONSULTATIONS 
 
1. (U) Summary:  Donor government representatives and NGOs 
were in full attendance at UNHCR,s informal consultations, 
May 18-19 in Geneva. Saying &we heard you last year,8 
then-Acting High Commissioner Wendy Chamberlin led the 
meeting, providing donors with an update on UNHCR,s approach 
to budget formulation and priorities for 2006.  These proved 
to have been heavily influenced by donor concerns expressed 
at last year,s informal consultations. Chamberlin briefed on 
progress toward needs-based budgeting and results-based 
management, as well as efforts to provide transparency and 
accountability within UNHCR. She also described UNHCR,s 
commitment to preventing further expansion at headquarters. 
UNHCR,s policy on internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 
regional priorities are described septel.  This cable focuses 
on management issues. End Summary. 
 
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Needs-Based Budgeting: Getting Closer but Not There Yet 
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2. (U) Chamberlin provided detailed remarks on this year,s 
country operation planning (COP) -- which was modified to 
include consultations with UN and NGO partners, government 
officials, and beneficiaries to identify gaps in humanitarian 
assistance in order to define the &outer limits of refugee 
needs.8  Chamberlin described preliminary results as 
&mixed,8 but added that input from the field would help 
UNHCR improve the exercise for 2007 planning.  Once the 2006 
exercise is complete, UNHCR plans to redirect the system to 
close identified gaps.  Chamberlin asserted that all actors 
need to be held accountable for filling the gaps, including 
donors who must provide support to meet core needs. 
 
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Results Based Management (RBM) 
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3. (U)  Chamberlin reported that UNHCR has made significant 
strides in formulating its budget to support results based 
management.  This year, she said, UNHCR reviewed its 2006 
country level objectives to produce a 2006 budget based on 
the activities directly linked to meeting those objectives. 
Chamberlin acknowledged, however, that country 
representatives also received an indicative dollar figure, 
which probably (as in past years) heavily influenced those 
representatives, sense of what was feasible to request. 
Chamberlin said that as guidance for 2006 planning, UNHCR 
instructed the field not only to identify priorities but to 
ensure that needs were linked to UNHCR,s organizational 
global strategies.  Headquarters will review the information 
and make decisions on what results UNHCR would like to see 
for 2006 based on the COPs.  This will be reflected in 2006 
decisions on the budget. 
 
3. (U)  A tool Chamberlin has used to address (in part) the 
problem of inconsistent and/or unbalanced priority-setting 
from one country or region to another is what she called the 
&90-108 approach.  At the bureau levels, Directors had to 
identify 10% of their activities as the lowest priority; the 
Executive level may shift funds from these activities to 
higher priorities in another bureau.  Until UNHCR,s internal 
systems allow for greater analysis of goals and budgets, 
&90-108 represents a first step toward global priority 
setting. 
 
4. (U)  Denmark urged UNHCR not to forget to document &with 
simple data8 its progress to achieve its objectives. 
Chamberlin responded that a system to accomplish 
results-based budgeting (RBB) is one that the Organizational 
Development and Management Section at UNHCR is working on, in 
order to report and gauge progress.  Sweden urged UNHCR to 
speed up the process and to consult with donors on what UNHCR 
should be doing in terms of increases and decreases in 
programs.  The UK stressed the importance of the age and 
gender mainstreaming approach and said the results of the 
pilots done in 2004 should be reflected in the COPs for those 
countries.  UNHCR confirmed that they were, but only 
&somewhat.8 
 
5. (U)  Chamberlin announced the establishment of an RBM Unit 
that would report to her in order to flesh out RBM 
organization wide.  Drawing on previous Standing Committee 
guidance, USDEL suggested that such a unit should incorporate 
and reunite the Budget office (now under the Controller) and 
the PCOS office in DOS (responsible for strategic planning). 
On the margins of the meeting, the Directors of both DOS and 
the Controller vociferously disagreed. 
 
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Transparency and Accountability: 
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6. (U)  UNHCR is taking steps to improve transparency and 
accountability within the organization.  Chamberlin described 
the progress made in implementing the Management System 
Renewal Process (MSRP), which she noted was slow but coming 
along.  UNHCR has completed implementation at headquarters 
and is now rolling out the new accounting system in the 
field.  Chamberlin said that UNHCR is now working on the 
human resources management program for the MSRP, which will 
create efficiencies and also allow staff to have better 
access to their records. 
 
7. (U) UNHCR is also working to improve the accountability 
and oversight of staff at headquarters and in the field.  The 
organization has started to send out via email the results of 
disciplinary procedures to send the message that staff are 
being held accountable for their actions.  UNHCR will also 
make on-line sexual harassment training mandatory in order to 
ensure that all staff are aware of these issues, and will 
also streamline the disciplinary process.  UNHCR is also 
directly linking personnel assessment reports with 
assignments.  Ninety-one percent of the necessary reports 
were completed in 2004, an improvement over past years.  In 
the next couple of months, UNHCR also will make mandatory 
360-degree evaluations for assignments and promotions. 
 
8. (U)  The Netherlands expressed its concern that UNHCR's 
progress be mainstreamed with the Consolidated Humanitarian 
Action Plan (CHAP), while the United Kingdom asked why UNHCR 
didn't begin that process in 2005.  UNHCR responded that in 
some cases, such as Sudan, UNHCR is in line with the CHAP and 
that UN agencies developed the plan based on needs that 
defined what UNHCR would do in a repatriation effort.  In 
terms of timing, UNHCR replied that it is often difficult to 
link up with CHAPs, as they are on different schedules than 
UNHCR,s COPs. 
 
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Headquarters Budget 
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9. (U)  The United States pointed out that although the 
Acting High Commissioner had earlier remarked that there 
would be no growth in headquarters in 2006, the notional 2006 
budget presented to donors indicated a $21 million increase 
from 2005.  Chamberlin replied that the budget figure was not 
yet final but noted that $15.8 m of the increase was due to 
foreign exchange losses and inflation.  Chamberlin added that 
UNHCR's goal was a "no net growth" for 2006 at headquarters, 
and challenged donors to state their priorities for UNHCR 
Headquarters.  USDEL responded that Protection (especially 
resettlement), HIV/AIDS, Interagency Health Evaluations, work 
on standards and indicators, staff training, JPOs, MSRP, 
staff security, emergency response, and deployment schemes 
(e.g. the Protection Surge Capacity project and refugee 
status determinations (RSD) deployments) were all important 
activities funded out of the Global Operations and 
Headquarters budgets. 
 
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Needs Based Assessment 
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10. (U)  Alan Vernon, Chief of the Organizational Development 
and Management Section (ODMS) led a presentation of progress 
made in the past 3 years to develop tools to: 
--improve the well-being of persons of concern 
--improve the quality of delivery of protection and assistance 
--strengthen resource allocation 
--strengthen resource mobilization 
--strengthen reporting to donors. 
 
11. (U)  Mengesha Kebede, chief of Program Coordination and 
Operational Support (PCOS) in the Department of Operational 
Support (DOS), said that conducting needs assessment is a 
continuous process, and is certainly not achieved by donors 
traveling to a capital for a Country Operations Plan (COP) 
workshop.  He benchmarked progress as follows:  standards and 
indicators have been developed for camp situations, returnee 
(voluntary repatriation) situations, and urban refugees.  The 
standards have been agreed to be global, and include a 
special category of protection indicators for each situation. 
 Owing to field reporting on indicators for 2003 and 2004, 
quantitative gaps have been identified, which moves UNHCR 
closer to identifying total refugee needs.  Age and Gender 
Mainstreaming (AGM) and the Situational Analysis Tool have 
addressed the quality of programming, with their goals of 
ensuring that refugees have input into development of 
programs (including objectives and outputs), and that the 
contribution comes from and addresses the needs and abilities 
of women, men, and children. 
 
12.  Kebede reviewed challenges.  Collecting data is 
time-consuming and costly.  Some data must be collected 
repeatedly: on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  Agreeing 
on baselines with partners is often difficult.  Applying the 
AGM and Situational Analysis tools systematically is an 
ongoing priority.  Quantifying protection standards in areas 
where &capacity building8 is the goal has also proved 
particularly difficult.  UNHCR continues the effort, however, 
because as indicators are agreed, they can be monetized, and 
budgets built from them.  And that will lead to budgets that 
are grounded in needs, and identification of real gaps 
between UNHCR,s budget and refugees, needs. 
13. (U) UNHCR provided some reports on the achievement of 
indicators, and others purporting to show actual monetized 
refugee needs.  The reports were based on field data.  The 
table asserting that needs in Europe were nearly the same as 
needs in Africa lacked credibility.  UNHCR agreed, noting 
that achieving comparability remains a large challenge, 
because of varying costs in different parts of the world and 
also because of a lack of consistency.  USDEL suggested that 
UNHCR report actual achievement of agreed standards, focusing 
on the percentage of camps (or refugees) that had achieved 
the standard, but also on the numbers themselves, as 
percentages show averages, which mask discrepancies among the 
camps. 
 
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2005 Budget:  Status Report 
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14. (U)  UNHCR,s operational budget lines were frozen at 5 
percent less than the EXCOM approved level in January, with 
the ABODS (Administrative) budgets frozen at 10 percent below 
EXCOM levels.  No staff freezes were implemented.  Quarterly 
allocations were front-loaded this year for the first time. 
In the second quarter, 30 percent of the year,s total was 
allocated, with a lower allocation of 20 percent planned for 
the fourth quarter.  This front-loading should improve 
implementation rates.  Compared to 2004, Operational Reserve 
part 1 has not been as heavily drawn down, despite funds for 
the recent crisis in Togo having come from OR-1. 
 
15. (U)  The UN Regular Budget allocation to UNHCR in 2005 
has increased to $38m, because of additional funds for 
security ($5.5m for Headquarters), and a technical adjustment 
to compensate for the stronger Swiss franc ($4.5m).  This has 
been offset by the increase in the shared cost of security 
borne by UNHCR (going to DSS). 
 
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Good Humanitarian Donorship ) Harmonized Reporting and 
Management Demands 
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16. (U)  Denmark, chair of the subgroup to harmonize donor 
demands for reporting from UN agencies, led a discussion to 
explore how the existing annual Global Report might be 
modified to include more information that would satisfy 
donors, requirements.  The Netherlands, Denmark, and 
Australia noted that funds that UNHCR seeks from 
non-humanitarian sources (political, domestic asylum, 
development) often have unique reporting requirements. 
Sweden feared that special reporting is on the increase, with 
80% of the new requirements coming from the European 
Commission (EC).  UNHCR responded that while the EC requires 
special reporting, it also has increased its contributions. 
 
17. (U)  Sweden declared the goal to be decreased earmarking 
from donors without their losing visibility.  USDEL suggested 
that UNHCR use the website as well as Standing Committee and 
EXCOM documents to give visibility to donors.  USDEL also 
said UNHCR should propose streamlining and harmonization to 
governments when requirements are similar.  The Netherlands 
suggested using the pledging conference to emphasize 
visibility.  Special reports to private corporate donors on 
relatively small contributions were acknowledged but deemed a 
necessary investment. 
 
18. (U) Several donors requested greater reporting against 
UNHCR,s Global Strategic Objectives, with indicators for 
outcomes and impacts; the UK asked for greater analysis of 
lessons learned.  UK also pointed to its bilateral 
agreement,s requirement that refugee voices, including those 
of refugee women, be a starting point for UNHCR programs. 
Japan asked specifically for numbers of those assisted to be 
included.  Switzerland asked for greater information on UNHCR 
activities to protect refugees.  Canada asked for improved 
UNHCR reporting to the Financial Tracking System (FTS) 
managed by the Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian 
Affairs (OCHA). 
 
19. (U) Because of results-based budgeting and management, 
many donors developped their own objectives and indicators 
bilaterally with UNHCR.  Donors agreed that UNHCR would need 
to take the lead in any effort to harmonize these indicators, 
with several (including USDEL) granting permission for their 
bilateral agreements to be shared with other donors.  The UK 
and New Zealand called for harmonization of objectives and 
indicators among UN agencies.  USDEL questioned the 
feasibility of that approach.  &Scorecards8 (such as the 
Office of Management and Budget,s Program Assessment Rating 
Tool and the UK/DFID,s scorecard) were valued because of 
their easily understood bottom line; standardization of them 
was also suggested.  Some donors insist on doing their own 
evaluations of UNHCR projects.  Three said they are trying to 
make the necessary changes to be able to accept the Global 
Report as the sole financial reporting mechanism. 
 
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COMMENT 
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20. (U)  The United States is not/not the problem in 
financial reporting, as the vast majority of our contribution 
is covered by the Global Report and the audited financial 
statements provided to EXCOM.  The U.S. will likely play a 
large role, however, in any effort to harmonize the setting 
of objectives and indicators for UNHCR programs and our PART 
process may come under scrutiny from other donors. 
 
21. (U) Donors came prepared for a lively discussion, and 
UNHCR,s interim management engaged on both policy issues and 
technical questions.  The combination of Sweden and the U.S. 
insisting on a needs-based approach to budgeting for two 
years resulted in the 2006 methodology.  While this 
methodology is far from achieving its desired result, it 
hopefully is on the right track.  It is led by a team aware 
of the large challenges ahead and trying to learn from the 
experiences of the 2003 and 2004 COP processes. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Moley