Brochure 1/2 EN

Brochure 1/2 EN

UNFSU Executive Elections 2021 - 2023 Ticket #2 Eva, Mohammed, Marie-Claire

FOREWORD Dear Friends and Colleagues, Eva, Marie Claire, and Mohammed are pleased to come forward as a running ticket to represent your best interest with honor and dedication. Our team brings together an amassed breadth of experience of three seasoned UNFSU Vice-Presidents who had the chance to serve you in recent years. Marie Claire served as a Vice President from 2011 to 2015, while Eva and Mohammed from 2017 to 2019. During our collective time in office, we have contributed to and made some great tangible accomplishments for the staff in the field. In this brochure, you shall read about what we achieved in the past, the great work that we intend to resume and to know our team better. Our team is privileged with a unique advantage of possessing the right mix of core competencies that are necessary to deliver: a profound understanding of your legitimate needs and aspirations and firsthand knowledge culminated throughout our long careers as staff, including many years in locations with extreme hardship, and through field visits as FSU Vice Presidents; the combination of our backgrounds in the Legal, Human Resources and Administrative fields; our gained experience over the years as Executives in the dynamics of staff-management consultation and the ICSC; our proven ability to consolidate your needs into bold initiatives and strategic positions, the formulation of meaningful proposals; and our strong rapport and leading role with Executives of sister Unions and Federations. Our team is simply the right solution for restoring the effectiveness and leading role of the UNFSU among other unions, overcome situations of adversity and rise to today ’ s challenges. As we start this journey with you and for you, we only count on your support and encouragement. We shall be honored by your confidence and voice to serve you and the UNFSU. Eva, Marie Claire, and Mohammed Ticket #2

PRIMER The Field Staff Union (UNFSU) as the largest single voice for international staff in the field has the crucial mandate to safeguard their rights, interests, welfare and wellbeing through consultation, negotiation, mediation, and discourse with the Secretary-General. Its success in this undertaking relies heavily on the abilities and experience of its leadership, the Executive, who is elected by its constituency at large. The decision who to vote for should therefore be well informed and taken with care and wisdom. The work of the Executive can drive change, address, and resolve pressing concerns, and make a forceful contribution towards a better life for the staff. In the wrong hands, its power will fade, losing clout and diminishing the credibility of staff as a voice worth being heard. More than ever, staff owe it to themselves to choose wisely. In these volatile times, two years are too long to leave elections to chance or personal sympathies. You need people with a vision for the staff, backbone, and experience in firmly navigating rules and regulations, “the system” and its political dynamics. In casting your vote, please do not give your confidence lightly. Remember that your voice deserves to be represented with knowledge, integrity, and genuine care on a human level to be taken seriously. Accept nothing less. Make your voice count. In considering your options, please do/you must not forget: § The primary responsibility of the UNFSU Executive, and the area where it can add the most value globally, is through its work on improving policies through staff-management consultations and in advising the ICSC that decides about your pay and benefits. This is where the Executive have a unique role to play and where most of their two-year term should be invested. Stop to consider each running team’s capacity and track record to deliver tangible results in that respect. § It is relatively easy to point out how staff suffer or where their concerns lie. However, only those with a clear direction and the ability to articulate sound arguments backed by facts and evidence can push through real changes in policies. § Publicity can be deceiving. More information does not equal better information and passing on information does not automatically entail taking credit for its contents. Ask yourself what you have seen your Executives do for you. Look beyond what meets the eye and verify what you are told. § UNFSU elections have not run smoothly for years, and incumbents generally have means to reach you at their disposal that contenders do not. Against this backdrop, your vigilance, your questions, and your voice matter even more. Make yourself heard.

THE TEAM

Our team brings together three prominent members who most of you have known for years. In this section we refresh your memory with who we are, what experiences we have culminated and what successes we were able to achieve. As three recent Vice-Presidents, we shall hit the ground running. We have the necessary experience of staff representation and the staff-management relation dynamics. Our relevant diversified professional backgrounds make us strong complementary assets to stand for your rights. Due to our intervention during our collective tenures as Executives, many changes for the better were accomplished and many mitigating measures to other policies were introduced: § Continuing contracts,

§ Travel time for Rest and Recuperation, § Enhancements to the UN justice system, § Rest and Recuperation improved,

§ Safeguarding boarding assistance in the revised Education Grant policy, § New allowance for staff in hardship family duty stations where family cannot be installed, § Addressing discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment, and abuse of authority, § The new work modalities under FWA/AWA. Those successes were just steps on a long path, and more were yet to be accomplished. During the past two years, we observed very little progress in the work conditions of staff in the field. We note the awareness and emphasis placed by management on the mental well-being of staff, as well as some support to staff regarding the AWA/FWA, all through existing instruments. Nevertheless, the same

chronic challenges remained unattended to because defending your rights has been relegated to the background without any real added value. While the unprecedented time of a pandemic has been imposing many challenges to the work of all of us as staff, such circumstances cannot be an excuse that would have impeded the execution of our mandate as Executives. The UNFSU work has always been mostly remote by nature, with its constituency and interlocuters dispersed around the globe. During our terms, this work setting has never hindered our progress in advancing your interest through Staff- Management consultations. The pandemic has created new challenges to the status of staff and need to be urgently addressed and overcome by seasoned Executives. We are confident that, if elected, we will be able to resume the necessary action on many of those challenges, old and new. With the advanced virtual tools and communication platforms that the organization has recently made available, interacting with you has become easier. This will add more value to our work and allow us to involve you in our progress. As Executives, we bear the onus to efficiently use our term in office to deliver our mandate as stipulated in our constitution. Bound by the core values of integrity and professionalism, we do not engage in misleading publicity or activities that distract away from the core responsibility of effectively defending your rights. We win, you win!

BIOGRAPHIES Mohammed Helal (for President)

Mohammed is a strong staff advocate since 2003. His whole UN experience being in the field and his early involvement with the UNFSU built his unique insights about the challenges facing staff in the field and the UNFSU. He has actively pushed for the union’s reforms since 2009. He is well known for his selfless passionate advocacy for staff’s rights. Mohammed is an Administrative Officer and a current

member of the Staff-Management Committee Contact Group. He became a UNFSU Council Member in 2013 and held office as the Vice President from 2017 to 2019. He started his career with the UN in 1999 in the FS category in CITS then moved across to Logistics, Mission Support Planning and Protocol. He became an Administrative Officer in the P category in 2007. He served in many Political and Peacekeeping missions in Western Sahara, DR Congo, Sudan, Darfur and Somalia. Mohammed holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and is pursuing higher studies in Organizational Psychology. His knowledge encompasses IT, Planning, Logistics, Administration, Human Resources and Protocol beside Staff- Management Relations. Mohammed deeply believes that staff in the field are dedicated personnel who sacrifice their personal and family lives in hardship and danger and deserve to be treated with respect. He believes that the Organization owes its staff and their families the utmost appreciation and duty of care in all aspects of their life at work and at home. His motto is “it is not what staff cost; it is what they are worth”. Mohammed’s deep cognizance of Regulations and Rules buttressed with his analytical skills provides him with the ability to make valuable and righteous arguments. As a Vice President and prior, Mohammed has been the author of many analytical union papers in the context of Staff-Management consultations. He contributed to many achievements for the staff. Mohammed is an Arabic native speaker, fluent in English and French. He is 54 years old, married and a father of a 12-year-old son and an 8-year-old daughter.

Eva Annette (for Vice-President)

Eva Annette, from France, Legal Officer in MINUSMA, has served in the UN Secretariat since 2008, performing duties as a legal officer in various United Nations missions. She was assigned to ONUCI (Ivory Coast), UNLB (Italy), UNIOGBIS (Guinea Bissau) and MINUSMA (Mali). Before joining the UN Secretariat, she has worked with UNDP, French foreign affairs, and French Ministry of justice. From August 2017 to September 2019, she served as a

UNFSU Vice-President along with Mohammed Helal. She is currently MINUSMA UNFSU Committee’s Chairperson, a position she assumed as well from mid 2014 until august 2017. Perseverant, constructive and solution oriented, her strong law background and analytical skills proved to be very useful when dealing with staff matters at large with UNFSU, at mission and Executive levels or, for staff interests, as a legal adviser or chairperson. She gets involved in various areas related to staff such as workplace issues and working conditions. While on the Executive, she completed a training on investigation of workplace disputes and got involved in panels as an investigator. Eva has been active and outspoken about racism in the workplace since the creation of UNPAD in 2016. She strives for diversity to be respected, and racism and discrimination to be tackled. Eva is a single mother of a 12-year-old son.

Marie Claire Kashama (for Vice-President)

Marie-Claire holds a position of Human Resources Assistant in MINUSMA, Mali. She has the advantage of breadth of experience in the field, administration, and human resources and as a Vice-president of UNFSU. She has served for 33 years in the administration and human resources in several entities including 8 years with UNICEF in several projects: Emergency, Child protection, DDR, Monitoring and Evaluation, Water and Sanitation etc.;

she served for more than 20 years in peacekeeping operations including UNMIK 2001-2006, UNIOSIL 2006-2008, ONUCI 2008-2011, Executive FSU in Brindisi 2011-2015, ONUCI 2015 – 2016; MINUSMA- Kidal 2017 and MINUSMA -Bamako 2018 to date. Before joining the UN, she worked as a Project Assistant at the School of Public Health of Kinshasa University 1988 - 1993, a USAID project. She was born in Kananga (DR Congo), married and a mother of 4 children. She studied “Secretariat de Direction et Bureautique” in Brussels. She is fluent in French, English and the 4 national languages of DR Congo and she has working knowledge of Italian. She knows what life in the field is and is eager to represent you once again.

OUR PROGRAM

Our Objectives We shall best employ our collective professional knowledge and experience as long serving staff and Executives for the best interest of the staff. Our overarching objective is to resume addressing the well-known chronic system deficiencies with the priority of assessing the new challenges emanating from the pandemic and the new working/life models that evolved. We shall endeavor to: “Safeguard the acquired rights of the international staff in the field through proactive engagement with stakeholders, characterized by situational awareness, political insight and persuasiveness.” “Strengthen the partnership with human resources policy makers, based on credibility, better communication, reasoning and ethics.” “Enhance human resources policies so that they provide and promote decent and productive work opportunities and meaningful, sustainable, and inclusive career development for all.” “Work on ensuring a respectful working and living environment that is safe, fair and free of harassment and racism.” “Find the optimal solutions to achieve the objectives of the organization without affecting the quality of employment and reinforce the belief that the value of civil servants is more important than their cost.” “Promote awareness and garner mutual support globally, through two-way communication with staff members, other unions and federations.”

The Manifesto We are committed to embark on our mandate with a clear vision and plan. Our manifesto is not just a list of staff’s issues concerns. It is supported by a full work plan, based on what we believe are optimal and reasonable approaches, within the legal, political, financial frameworks of our organization. We shall organize our work in such a way that issues with the utmost priority be addressed timely. The pandemic not only brought to the fore some of chronic concerns but created new ones. While we shall continue to address the former, our priority shall be focused on the latter. 1. Job Security Job security comes at the top of our priority. While it has always been a concern, it has become, with the pandemic and the new way of work, even more concerning. We shall monitor and understand the intentions of the stakeholders, especially in relation to contractual modalities and act firmly to protect you against any risk to your status as staff. We shall also work on better mitigating measures against job loss whether due to downsizing, liquidation and nationalization of posts or centralization of support services and the remote work practice emanating from the pandemic. We shall pursue a solid legal and ethical basis for the exercise of potential future workforce reshaping. 2. Work/Life Balance The policy on Flexible Working Arrangements needs to be amended to be practically more fit for purpose for the field. This has become a more pressing issue than ever due to its foreseen wider use following the pandemic. The element of accountability of managers in the uniform implementation of the policy shall also be a priority within the wider scope of accountability under the Delegation of Authority. As work/life balance is essential to staff wellbeing and has also become a major element of staff retention, talent attraction and gender balance, it is essential for both women and men to be able to work and produce while maintaining their personal life. 3. Accountability The current accountability framework, especially policies on the abuse of authority and discrimination as well as the system of Internal Justice do not provide for adequate preventive and post-facto measures to curtail the possibility of breaching staff rights or ensure timely recourse when needed. Reinforcing accountability in view of the Delegation of Authority over HR matters is our unfinished business from 2019 on which there has been no progress ever since. We shall resume our work to put to practice our clear vision in addressing as well as preventing to the extent possible the potential misuse of this delegation.

4. Staff Selection andMobility We shall work with Management on an integrated approach to staff selection and mobility. We intend to focus on enhancing the Staff Selection system not only for a more transparent and better career advancement, but also as a natural facilitator of mobility. We shall work on local mobility schemes within and across missions in parallel with mobility within the Secretariat and Inter-Agency mobility. 5. Gender Balance The gender gap in the field developed from a combination of systemic, contrived, and classic causes. We are alarmed by easy shortcuts that focus purely on statistics and offset one problem by many others. We shall work on ensuring that the policy’s goals are attained in a meaningful manner. Our goal is to first secure, retain and promote our female staff who worked hard to earn their positions and at the same time provide career opportunities for all. 6. Career Development Elements of talent management are integral and interdependent. Among them are performance management and career development, alongside staff selection and lateral and upward mobility. We intend to invest a lot of time and effort on these important aspects that are fundamental to staff career progression. The FS to P path is a pressing necessity for career development of our many qualified FS colleagues. We intend to strongly pursue unclogging this path and we will strive putting forward feasible ideas to that end. 7. Conditions of Service The scope of conditions of service overarches the pay scales and post adjustments, within-grade increments, education grant, removal costs, hardship, mobility allowances, non-family service allowance, danger pay and other elements such as rest and recuperation, home leave and leave entitlements and accommodation for air travel. Just as we successfully pushed in 2018 for the approval of a new allowance for staff in family duty stations who could not install their families, we shall work within the present review of the compensation package to restore some of the previously lost benefits and entitlements and push for new components. Salary increase shall also be high on our agenda. We shall submit arguments and make cases for bringing more fairness to some of those emoluments, allowances, and entitlements. 8. Health, Safety, Security, andWellbeing Health, safety and security, welfare and wellbeing are among the most serious concerns for staff. These elements have a much stronger echo in dangerous and hardship duty stations. Security comes as our prime concern. We shall work on emboldening the concept of “staff security comes first”. We shall work on ensuring adequate security for our camps, early warnings and preventive actions

against any potential threats to our staff, safe evacuation plans, among other security aspects. We have seen the OSH activities starting to take place but a lot more is yet needed. Our missions need to be equipped with more capable medical facilities. The use of telehealth services needs to be applied in a wider scope. Medical evacuation policies need to be safeguarded and improved. Accommodation facilities need to be standardized to meet the requirements of safety and wellbeing. 9. Social Security We shall engage to protect and promote staff social security measures such as a better Pension Management and Health and Life insurances in and after service. The General Assembly, in January 2019, voted a landmark resolution (A/RES/73/274) to fix problems at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF). There is certainly a need to remain vigilant as the Pension Fund is our only form of social security after retirement. We shall also pursue the establishment of a UN Health and Life Insurance Committee focused on the field to satisfy the needs of staff which are different from that at HQ. We shall revisit the eligibility and modality of the After Service Health Insurance (ASHI). 10. Making the UNFSU better The UNFSU continues to face many internal and external challenges to realizing its full potential of efficiency and effectiveness. It functions across four interfaces and through certain mechanisms, each having its own shortfalls. We shall build on existing strengths and work on improving its weaknesses along those interfaces. A structured, mutual, and continuous engagement along those four axes is crucial to learning, communicating, coordinating, and advancing unified positions on staff issues. However, the strength of the UNFSU partly depends on who the staff elects to take up the crucial role of staff representation at the local but more importantly the Executive level. The mandate of the Executives is to change bad policies at the origin rather than firefighting its consequences. This undertaking cannot be successful without deep knowledge, firsthand experience with the field, analytical skills, and the ability to formulate and defend solutions in a comprehensive manner. The complexity of issues the UNFSU handles today necessitates a serious focus on how to make it a stronger representative body. We are strong supporters for the reform, institutionalization, and modernization of the UNFSU. We need an empowered UNFSU that plays a key balancing role in the organization and can eventually take initiatives and not only react to developments. We have some concrete ideas to take a leap on these matters which we intend to implement once in office.