Opportunity
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Whilst certain ICT activities should be resourced internally, particularly those that are in support of the organization’s core business, there is a wide range of IS and ICT support services that may be more costly when resourced internally, especially when resourced from high-cost geographic locations.
The rapid decline in telecommunications costs offers the opportunity for a more rational distribution of resources to perform ICT support functions, and this trend has been followed by many private sector organizations, with outsourcing or offshoring initiatives. Skilled and appropriately educated ICT resources are not confined to Western Europe and North America, but are available, at considerably reduced cost, in many developing countries and countries in transition.
The opportunity therefore exists for the UN system to achieve considerable cost savings by switching many of its current independent agency-based ICT support services from high cost locations in Western Europe and North America to lower cost regions.
This initiative will deliver cost savings to individual agencies, and these will be greater if combined with a move to a shared service facility, such as ICC, especially if this shared service facility were also provided from a lower geographic cost base. Such a move is in support of the Millennium Development Goals, and would set an example of how UN Organizations can achieve cost savings whilst supporting the economies of developing countries and countries in transition.
This initiative, in the ICT support area might also serve as a useful pilot for other administrative areas in the UN, where a move to lower-cost geographic locations, combined with common services provision, could establish a new operating model for UN administrative arrangements, resulting in a much reduced cost and a positive measure of support to developing countries and countries in transition.
Contributors : ICT Network Working Group
Chief Executives Board Secretariat
Last modified 2005-11-06 10:26