The board of the organization acknowledges major accomplishments and sets new priorities
UNICC’s Management Committee (MC), the organization’s governance body comprised of representatives from over 40 Partner Organizations, met on 4 – 5 May in Washington D.C. for the 111th Management Committee (MC) meeting. This was the first MC meeting of the year and was hosted by the International Monetary Fund.
Thank you to Shirin Hamid and the International Monetary Fund for hosting the 111th session of the UNICC Management Committee, a very productive and strategic set of meetings with a very supportive and interactive board.
Sameer Chauhan, Director, UNICC
UNICC’s accomplishments in review
The meeting started with a Director’s Update on human resources, finance, operations, cybersecurity and network matters. Sameer Chauhan, Director, UNICC presented a review of the milestones achieved by the organization in the past few years.
Participants took notice of the UNICC Transformation closure report with all the workstreams established in 2018 now closed or mainstreamed. The organization received lots of compliments from the Partners on its digital transformation.
Other statutory business items included a presentation by the Audit Subgroup, with representatives from WIPO, UNJSPF and CTBTO, on risks at corporate and board levels and latest updates on audits and compliance.
A fruitful Management Committee meeting
The two-day gathering was filled with productive discussions and the board came to various agreements, including the approval of the budget for the next biennium and the election of the chairmanship. Fabrice Boudou, Director of IT Solutions Division, World Trade Organization (WTO) was re-elected as Chair for two more years and Salem Avan, Director, Policy, Strategy & Governance Division, Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT), United Nations was elected as Vice-Chair.
Partners discussed the expansion of the UNICC-UNRWA partnership that began in 2020 to enhance opportunities for Palestinian refugees in Gaza. This foundational agreement enables UNICC to hire skilled consultants, positively impacting our digital solutions and cybersecurity services delivery. The MC approved a new pilot project that expands on this partnership, making UNRWA resources easily accessible to partners via UNICC. The pilot project is set to run for a year.
Another subject of intense debate was Generative AI. The Management Committee mandated UNICC to become the Generative AI Hub for the UN system.
Additionally, the MC approved four new services that have been added to the UNICC service catalogue. Our partners can now subscribe to change management services, environmental resilience and sustainability services, cybersecurity and continuity exercise services, and Azure Active Directory management services.
UNICC and the future of digital solutions for the UN system
The 111th Management Committee meeting featured very engaged partners that were eager to participate in defining new priorities for the organization. To respond to this demand, UNICC ran an interactive workshop with breakout sessions where the over 40 Partners provided feedback on UNICC’s services and solutions and contributed with their ideas to determine UNICC’s strategic direction for the next three to five years.
