ENTEBBE – On Friday 24th January, Chief of the Regional Service Centre Entebbe (RSCE) Paulin Djomo invited all staff of the RSCE to attend a beginning of the year town hall meeting. The chief RSCE recognised 2019 to be a fantastic year while also looking forward to the year to come. The first year of the new decade – 2020 – promises to be another exciting year for the RSCE with many different opportunities and several challenges.

The Chief RSCE finds it critical that the centre needs to continuously show its importance, effectiveness and value within the United Nations Common System and to the public. He specifically noted that the number of transactions handled by the Centre have increased with additional functions added to the Centre’s portfolio. The increase in transactions occurred despite the decrease by 1,600 in total staff headcount of the 20 entities which the RSCE supports, from 19,400 to 17,800. This number includes the decrease of 1,200 staff from the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) and the United Nations African Union Hybrid Operation In Darfur (UNAMID) due to reorganisations.

While updating staff who are concerned about a pending decision regarding the Global Service Delivery Model (GSDM), the Chief RSCE mentioned that the decision was deferred to the resumed session of the General Assembly (GA) in March 2020. In the meantime, he invited staff to ensure the RSCE continues to perform as a World Class Centre, improving services to clients and innovating in service provision.

In addition, the Chief RSCE also had news to share that was greeted with cheer. The announcement was made that the budget proposal for 2020/2021 does not consider any post cuts. The proposal integrated the nationalisation of five international positions thus responding to the GA’s request for more nationalisation and recognising the quality of the labour market in the host country.

To conclude, some housekeeping notifications were made.

There are ongoing discussions between the RSCE and Cigna Health Insurance to restore the in-network services at hospitals in Uganda for staff. The interruption of the Cigna network in Uganda has seriously affected staff.

The last issue addressed by the Chief RSCE was the number of holidays approved by the UN Resident Coordinator (RC) for Uganda. Under the delegation of authority, the Resident Coordinator replaced one UN holiday which has been celebrated over the years in Uganda with the UN day. This year the UN will be celebrating its 75th anniversary and the RC included the day in the 2020 holidays to mark the 75th anniversary of the UN. It will surely be a joyful celebration.