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As you are aware, all UN duty stations other than those classified as category "H" are classified according to conditions of life and work as they pertain to the internationally recruited staff. This classification, known as the hardship classification, has a direct impact on the amount of the hardship allowance paid to international staff serving in the duty stations concerned.

While duty stations may be reviewed in any year at the request of the duty station (e.g. when conditions have changed dramatically), each and every duty station is reviewed at least once every three years. These reviews are known as "mandatory reviews".

The classification of duty stations is primarily based on the information provided by the duty station itself through the completion of a comprehensive questionnaire, precisely because it is important to capture how conditions impact on the staff serving at the duty station.

However, since a number of duty stations do not, in fact, submit questionnaires in a timely manner, these mandatory reviews cannot always be performed as they should be, and the result is that hardship classifications may remain un-reviewed for long periods of time. This undermines the credibility of the hardship scheme, and introduces inequities in the payment of hardship allowances across duty stations.

The deadline for the submission of questionnaires for the 2010 mandatory review was 15 August 2010. A large number of duty stations did not respond.

 

The Commission in its recently concluded 71st session therefore decided that henceforth all duty stations due for mandatory review will be reviewed irrespective of whether a questionnaire has been received or not.

This includes duty stations under your responsibility.

Please refer to the attached "List of Pending Questionnaires", available from FICSA on request. If duty stations on this list under your responsibility are no longer active (i.e. have no internationally recruited staff assigned to them for a period of one year or longer), then please inform us by 1 October 2010, and we will remove them from the list of active duty stations, in which case no further action is required on your part.

If, however, duty stations on this list under your responsibility continue to have internationally recruited staff assigned to them for periods of one year or longer, then they are active duty stations, and must be reviewed. In this case, you are kindly requested to submit a duly completed questionnaire to my colleague Mr. Ivan Cordeiro at < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > no later than 1 October 2010.

If no questionnaire is received by us by that date, we will have no option but to review the duty station(s) using all other available sources of information available to the Commission, and the hardship classification will occur without the input from the duty station. All new duty station classifications arising from the 2010 mandatory review will be come effective 1 January 2011.