Umoja Service Delivery is now in Peacekeeping Missions

On 1 July 2016, Umoja achieved another milestone by deploying the Services Delivery (SD) functionality to 23 peacekeeping missions, special political missions and DFS offices in Headquarters. 

This solution allows UN departments, offices and missions that provide services to internal and external clients manage the costs and billings for their services.

Aviation Services, Conference Services, Information Technology and Facilities Management are all prime examples of Service Providers that need to recover costs for services provided. For example, when a group of internal or external clients requests a helicopter or a chartered flight, Aviation organizes the service and uses Umoja to calculate the relevant costs, such as fuel, flight hours, ground handling and applicable administrative fees, based or the corresponding rates established in the Umoja service catalogue. The total service cost is then distributed amongst the clients. Internal entities are billed using cost allocation or service orders. Invoices for external clients are generated from Umoja.  

Another example is if Conference Services organises a conference on behalf of a client, they often use resources that have not been budgeted and therefore the associated costs would have to be recovered. The services may include translation, audio/ video systems and technicians, and in some cases the actual coordination of the conference and the facility itself.

With the deployment of this Service Delivery functionality to peacekeeping and special political missions, we will gain a much better picture of all cost recovery activities across the Secretariat. 

Services Delivery was first deployed to three entities during Cluster 3 in June 2015 and to nine entities during Cluster 4 in November of 2015. This recent deployment was led by OPPBA in collaboration with DFS, OCSS and the Umoja team. 

While additional refinements to the service catalogue are needed, the SD roll-out represents a step towards standardizing activities and rate structures as well as improved monitoring, automation and increased visibility across all entities.