The United Nations, its operating environment, the scale of humanitarian responsibility, and the size of the budget entrusted to the Organization have all evolved significantly in recent years. The Secretariat has experienced tremendous growth in its operations, its personnel, and its budgets. It has shifted from a headquarters-centric organization to one with much greater emphasis on field-based operations such as peacekeeping. The challenge is daunting in its own right, but is even more so when undertaken without the requisite tools and skills.

Following are some the pressing challenges the UN faces today:

1. Currently the lack of integrated and complete data on HQ and Field resources impedes effective management, planning and decision-making.
2. Peacekeeping operations have proliferated at an unprecedented pace and have grown in both size and complexity, often in regions with poor basic infrastructure. To ensure a minimum of reliable automation and telecommunication capacity, a series of new information systems have had to be developed rapidly, but have proven difficult to integrate with IMIS — the United Nations system of record. This has led to a patchwork of fragmented, support-intensive, home-grown systems that are not sustainable and efficient over the long term.
3. There is a need to adopt the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) which will introduce significant changes to UN accounting processes.
4. After 14 years IMIS has reached the end of its useful life. The cost of maintaining and supporting the system no longer matches the benefits that are provided. Also the systems which are currently in place to support customer-service areas are obsolete, duplicative, and inefficient. Lack of integration with other systems (Galileo, ProcurePlus, Mercury, etc.) results in duplicative, time-consuming work and inconsistent, fragmented information.

The Organization is long overdue for a renewal that will bring processes, procedures, skills and systems in line with leading practice. Umoja's goal is to bring about this renewal: uniting the many support and administrative Secretariat entities through re-designed and common processes and practices, shared online data, updated information technology, and training for staff.

The Benefits of Umoja

Umoja is the cornerstone of dramatic reform to the administrative and peacekeeping support functions of the United Nations. Umoja presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build and implement the processes, systems and education that will ensure not only the continued operability, but also the improved accountability and indeed the credibility of the entire Organization, from back office to field mission.

Upon deployment, the UN will begin to realize some immediate qualitative benefits. Umoja will:

• adopt leading practices to meet the UN's needs, harmonizing them across the Organization
• provide the platform and tools for the Secretariat's implementation of IPSAS
• improve alignment of authority, accountability and internal controls
• empower staff with the training and tools they need to better meet their responsibilities
• reduce the UN's administrative burden and focus more resources on the mandates
• deliver improved service, helping the UN be more responsive to Member States and beneficiaries.

If funding and support continues, Umoja is also projected to deliver quantitative benefits in the range of $134 million to $224 million in ongoing annual productivity and efficiency improvements as a result of:

• streamlining business processes
• reducing transaction cycle times
• vastly improving quality and availability of information
• better supporting reporting and decision-making
• decreasing manual effort
• building staff skills
• leveraging modern technology.

Source: A/64/380 Report of the Secretary-General "First progress report on the enterprise resource planning project and revised estimates under section 28A, Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Management, of the proposed programme budget for 2010-2011, and under the peacekeeping support account"