New technology strengthens UN's administration systems.

• Author: Brown, Dennis
• Position: Integrated Management Information System - IMIS

The United Nations of the nineties is in the forefront of efforts by public and private organizations to reinvigorate their operations to meet the challenges of today's fast-paced global community.

In order to respond effectively to the demands of peace-keeping operations around the world and expectations by Member States to do more with less, the UN has, among other efforts, been tapping the fountain of cutting-edge technology. High-tech information management and communications technologies are strengthening the administrative heart of the Organization, providing the stamina and conditioning that are essentials of modern management.

With around 15,000 employees and 16 multinational peace-keeping operations scattered globally, the administrative demands on the UN's technological infrastructure are enormous. To the typical difficulties associated with payroll, benefits, accounting and everyday management, add the complexities of administering for 185 nations and daily operations in more than 100 currencies.

"Even the best equipped organizations would have blown a fuse doing what we must do on a daily basis", said Gian Piero Roz of the Office of the Under Secretary-General for Administration and Management, who is working on a project to revamp the UN's administrative systems. "We're changing the way we do business here", said Roz, noting that until now, the UN, like many public and private establishments, had relied on mainframe technology from the 1960's to support what was essentially a paper-based system.

It was further encumbered by systems that did not talk to each other, tedious manual data entry, and long delays in receiving routine information. A variety of ad hoc technological solutions had been adopted to overcome the historic limitations imposed on information management by time, distance and storage space.

Today, the degree of computerization reached at the UN has taken the Organization to a point of total reliance and dependence on computers and information technology for everyday activities. Personal computers (PCs) are used at all levels in every office. They are used for substantive as well as for administrative activities, in clerical tasks, as communication devices (E-mail) and as a vehicle to access centrally-maintained systems and data-bases (i.e.: IMIS).

IMIS

A primary ingredient in the UN's new technological stock is the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS), which is emerging as the brain and brawn of the Organization's own information superhighway. Designed and installed in conjunction with major private-sector consulting firms, IMIS takes a global approach to information management, enabling personnel and computers at UN...