Exclusive: UN Injects $37m in Maintained Entebbe Regional Service Centre

The United Nations (UN) has decided to maintain the Regional Service Centre Entebbe, saving hundreds of jobs.

The General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, which scrutinizes UN’s budgets, said in a report dated June 27 that it “Acknowledges the support of the Government of Uganda in facilitating the work of the United Nations at the Regional Service Centre in Entebbe, Uganda” and “Decides to upgrade the post of Chief of the Regional Service Centre to the D-2 level.”

The United Nations General Assembly last year decided to “defer until its 74th session the consideration” of the Secretary General’s report on the Global Service Delivery Model which would have seen Regional Service Service Centre Entebbe relocated.

António Guterres’ report had proposed that Global Shared Service Centres be established in Nairobi, Kenya; Shenzhen, China; Budapest, Hungary and Montréal, Canada.

The recommendation, subject to consensus of 193 UN member states, would have taken away more than 300 jobs from the Entebbe Service Centre.

However, according to the resolution submitted by the Chair of the Fifth Committee following informal consultations regarding

Administrative and budgetary aspects of the financing of the United Nations peacekeeping operations, the Secretary-General was told to  support mechanisms to facilitate military air transportation services provided by Member States intended to service multiple peacekeeping missions in the region from Entebbe.

Contacted for comment, Uganda’s envoy to United Nations, Amb Adonia Ayebare expressed joy that the leadership of Entebbe regional service center has been upgraded to D2 level “which is the highest UN post in Uganda as the Resident Cordinator is a step below D1.”

He said the UN decision “sends a political statement that the center is going nowhere.”

Amb Ayebare further observed that the Global Service Delivery Model (GSDM) decision which was supposed to relocate RSCE has been pushed to next session amid reports that the UN secretariat has lost interest in it.

“The budget of the center was the least cut in the UN peace keeping budget. This was due to heavy lobbing by me and the team,” said Ayebare.

Budget

The UN approved $37,159,200 for the maintenance of the Regional Service Centre for the period from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021.

“This is an excellent outcome and a vote of confidence in the Regional service center Entebbe as a trusted partner in facilitating the work of UN peace keeping and special political missions in the region,” said Ayebare.

The development is a huge sigh of relief for the country which earns millions of dollars annually from the busy Entebbe centre.

Uganda had expressed concern over UN’s decision to relocated the Centre considering the country boasts great weather and plentiful harvest which mean the cost of living is comparatively lower in Uganda than in any of the African countries hosting the centres. Many retiring foreign diplomats have opted to live in Uganda.

Ugandan diplomats had wondered why Guterres would seek to abolish an already existing shared service center established since 2010 in a low-cost location and establish centers in high-cost locations.

Uganda was also surprised that the consolidation of shared services didn’t start from the most expensive locations and finally deal with the abolishment of services in the existing shared service.

Other countries were also opposed to the global service delivery model.

Ethiopia asked for alternative measures to avoid resources wastage in the already existing facilities, while moving shared services elsewhere.