Strategic Vision

Our goal is to foster a culture of respect in the Fund to ensure that professional dialogue is conducted and encouraged in all the decisions. 

We aim to:

• Continue the culture transformation initiated in 2021, by developing an organizational manual for the Office of Investment Management to help to

(i) Articulate accountability frameworks reflecting the changing organizational structure 

(ii) Address the need for greater clarity on roles and responsibilities for continuing growth 

• Develop training and strengthen partnerships with other UN agencies. 
• Increase gender parity: progress towards achieving gender parity at each internationally recruited staff level making optimum use of vacancies filled during the reporting period. 
• Achieve equitable geographical of staff member: the goal is to have at least fifty per cent of appointments on posts subject to geographical distribution that are from un- or under-represented Member States. 
• Progress towards recruiting staff on as wide a geographical basis as possible for all posts making optimum use of vacancies.

• The Fund will further improve interaction with participants, retirees and beneficiaries, as well as member organizations. For the Fund’s clients, this will include the implementation of a new client service delivery model, including the new customer relationship management system, adopted in November 2021, which will improve responsiveness in handling queries. 
• For member organizations, a new interface between Umoja (Human Resources Software) and the Integrated Pension Administration System (IPAS) will automate the transfer of an employer’s separation notification, saving time and manual handling. In addition, the Fund will continue to map its processes to drive greater efficiency, including robotic process automation pilot projects.

Our goal is to improve the UNJSPF's sustainability profile and position it as a leader in sustainable investing while optimizing returns. We also aim at reducing the environmental impact of the Fund’s operations and commit toward the targets set by the UN Secretariat Climate Action Plan. 

We will achieve this by:  

• Expanding the mechanisms for integrating ESG factors in investment decision process 
• Maintaining or improve the rating of the PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment) Score Report 
• Achieving the Net-Zero goals guided by the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance's directives 
• Developing a plan to include impact as an additional criterion for part of the portfolio as requested by the General Assembly 
• Maintaining a low-level ratio of travel expenditure 

Our goal is to continue to maintain the Risk Register as a living document through periodic quarterly reviews and continue to align the Risk Register and Risk Treatment and Response Plan to the UN Secretariat's common approach to Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). 

Our primary goal is to ensure that the Fund can serve the needs and service expectations of our stakeholders efficiently and cost-effectively. In reaching this goal, we are working toward achieving the following secondary goals: 

• Ensure that systems are operational 24/7 
• Make certain that the systems are operated within the rules of the Fund and applicable laws 
• Protect data and systems 
• Archive all data daily and store the data securely off-site for a minimum of five years
• Take advantage of new technology to enhance the overall service delivery of the Fund 
• The digital capture of pension forms in member self-service, the Fund’s digital portal, is expected to dramatically simplify filling pension forms online 
• The deployment of signature recognition will reduce manual tasks and improve control accuracy when receiving forms, specifically the annual certificate of entitlement 
• Strengthen cybersecurity 

Our principal goal is to develop a new data management strategy to become a data-driven organization. To this end we will increase data literacy, integrate data management in decision making, and develop areas of data governance, data management and best practices, reporting and developing a center of data excellence. 

We aim at improving data quality and use via data governance policy, data strategy coordinated by a Steering Committee, a Data Council which meets quarterly, and Data Stewards Group which meets monthly. This will enable us to improve  our data strategy policy, and data quality policy.

The Fund is committed to gender equality, inclusion and diversity. It also aims to achieve greater geographical representation across all positions. Over the past years, the Fund has also hired more staff members to strengthen capacity in the different teams to help support the Fund's growth, both in terms of pension administration and investment.   

Achievements: 

• In 2022, the number of staff members in the Fund has reached 363
• In 2022, the Fund reached 55 per cent female employees, 45 per cent male employees, an increase from 2021, where 53 per cent were female staff members and 47 per cent were male
• As of 31 December 2022, the Fund employs staff members from 63 countries 

Since 2021, the Fund has intensified its cultural transformation and has adopted several strategies on human resources, learning and development, gender, and communication. A first (2021), and a second (2022) Leadership Culture Assessments (LCA) were conducted with staff in collaboration with the UN System Staff College to identify areas of improvement in the work environment and best practices. 

Achievements: 

• Staff Members volunteers working on conceptualizing and implementing a range of initiatives aimed at the continuous improvement of the work environment in the Fund 
• Several staff groups were formed to advance the future of work, inclusion, decision-making and accountability, cross-team collaboration, communication, skill building and transformation, and innovation 
•  A new intranet was launched to improve internal communication
• A significant increase in the positive responses from staff concerning their opinion about the Fund’s work environment in the Leadership Culture Assessment Survey

In 2022, the Fund provided the essential information technology resources and invested in technology. It continuously pursues and launches new information technology initiatives to strengthen the utilization of its tools. The Fund has also strengthened major projects including the digital certificate of entitlement detailed in the client management section below. 

Achievements: 

• The Fund increased the number of staff members in the Information Technology and Communication (ICT) team to cover important roles in Information Security and Business Continuity functions as well as the Service Desk 
• The Information Security function was enhanced with the implementation of Data Loss Prevention tools and Security Information and Event Management Monitoring 
• The ISO certification for Information Security (ISO 27001:2013) and Business Continuity (ISO 22301:2019) continued to be maintained in 2022 with the annual certification process within internal and external audits
• Creation of a Business Transformation Unit to ensure that improvements are undertaken on a continuous basis  

The Fund aims at providing excellent service to its clients and to simplify and digitalize interactions between the Fund and its clients.   

Achievements: 

• Outperformed its processing benchmark for initial separations, with 93.3 percent of benchmark benefits processed within 15 business days, the highest performance ever recorded
• Through facial recognition, blockchain and geolocation technologies, the Digital Certificate of Entitlement (DCE) app allows our clients to use their phone or tablet to fulfil their annual proof-of-life obligation, as an alternative to mailing a paper form. The DCE app, won the United Nations Secretary-General Award in 2022 for innovation and sustainability with 15,282 digital certificates issued in 2022, a large increase of almost two hundred percent compared to 2021 with 7,732 certificates issued  
• The launch of a new website merging information on the pension plan and investments has improved our communication and information sharing. It includes eleven e-learning modules and a series of twenty videos to make pension matters clearer

In 2022, the Fund’s objectives were to: 

• Achieve the Net-Zero intermediary target of 29 per cent reduction in the carbon footprint of the equities, corporate bonds and private real estate portfolios 
• Advance the Fund’s sustainable investing strategy and an acceleration of climate program for further integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors across all asset classes 
• Augment the sustainable investing team to further expand ESG application across asset classes and resources, collaborating with different stakeholders, including OIM’s investment officers and external working groups
• Developing an impact investing strategy to serve as a framework when exploring impact investing opportunities as per the GA resolution

Achievements:  

In 2022 the Fund has:  

• Overachieved its objective as it reduced financed emissions by 39 per cent for equities, corporate bonds and private real estate
• Improved the integration of ESG into the investment process across its various asset classes (public and private markets) 
• Developed an impact investing strategy, including themes and a policy 
• Increased the Sustainable Investing team’s capacity by hiring 3 new staff members
• Ranked first in the 2021-2022 Responsible Asset Allocator Initiative (RAAI) Index and Leaders List Report  
• Became a Signatory of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) Statement from the financial sector 
• Engaged with more than 500 companies across environmental, social and corporate governance issues through service provider EOS
• Voted at 1,032 company meetings on a total of 12,962 proposals 

The Fund’s objective is to achieve the Data Strategy of the Secretary General for Action by Everyone, Everywhere: With Insight, Impact and Integrity, aiming at building governance mechanisms and strategy oversight to manage data as a shared strategic asset (here).

Achievements:

• The Fund has strengthened its data strategy in 2022 by increasing its data analytics team on the Investment side with 2 new staff members and setting up a Data Council and Data Stewardship Committees
• Creation of a Data Analysis Unit to meet our objective of becoming a data-driven organization on the Pension Administration side