The Umoja team recently concluded a two-week workshop on changes that are coming to UN real estate management.

Representative staff from offices away from headquarters and field missions who specialize in central support services attended the New York event, where they previewed the Umoja Solution for managing UN buildings and property.

One participant said it was a “huge breakthrough” to see that complete architectural details, including the measurements of floors, rooms, fixtures and fittings, will be accessible in Umoja, as well as building leases and staff office assignments.

Over the last year, these staff members have been working with Umoja as Subject Matter Experts in re-engineering a wide range of business processes - everything from lease management to garage administration and planning for office moves.

The Umoja Solution will replace current ways of tracking and managing this information which often involves many disconnected databases and unwieldy spreadsheets.

Participants gave their feedback about how the new approach may play out in their respective duty stations. The Umoja Solution takes into account the diverse needs of the UN system. In Nairobi, for example, all UN facilities are in one main campus whereas some peacekeeping missions may have over 100 different lease agreements across a given country.

The Umoja team and its Subject Matter Experts will be incorporating feedback from workshop participants into the ongoing design and construction of the real estate components of Umoja.

To learn more about Umoja visit www.unumoja.org

Originally published on iSeek on Tuesday, 22 February 2011, New York