Common Premises*

Common premises entail the co-location of two or more United Nations entities present in a country. Common premises can be established at national and sub-national level, usually supported by a range of common services enabled by agency co-location.

Common premises are a key enabler for common services and shared services [1] between agencies and form an integral part of the United Nations efforts to harmonize common operations at the country level. The objectives are reflected in the local Business Operations Strategy (BOS). There can be more than one common premises at the national and sub-national level.

The primary objectives for establishing common premises is to achieve greater utility of available resources;

• Cost efficiency through reduction of operational costs

• Effective utilization of shared resources

• Enhanced security

• Unified presence at the national and sub-national level

One United Nations House*

Common premises may be designated as a One United Nations House (One UN House) if it meets the following criteria:

• Meets the minimum criteria for common premises.

• The UN House must house the office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator (RCO)

While there can be several common premises, there can only be one, One UN House in any given country.

[1] Shared Service is defined as two or more resident United Nations entities present in a country, whether or not co-located in a Common Premises that may engage in bi-lateral agreements with similar objectives to those for establishing a Common Premises.

*Official definitions from the TTCP+FS

In addition to the CP-related content stated below, please note that the CP Helpdesk contains more information and resources to answer questions such as: how to reset the password, how to assign roles to users, how to remove a user, how to request support, etc. It also includes an FAQ page.

The UN Info Common Premises (CP) Platform is an online tool automating the planning and implementation of common premises projects for each country and serves as a database of UN office premises pursuing the Common Premises targets across the 132 UNCTs and Multi Country Offices.

The platform will offer standardized and consistent monitoring of premises and their establishment in line with the processes outlined by the Task Team on Common Premises and Facilities Services (TTCP+FS). A monitoring and reporting system will track progress and report on the impact realized. An annual review of each country’s consolidation plan will ensure the continuity of the CP agenda.

The Country Premises Plan is the real estate strategy of each UNCT to progress their respective common premises situation. The CPP is worked on the platform and is updated on a yearly basis.

Establishment of the CPP

The main steps to create a Country Premises Plan are:

1. Kick off – The CP working group is created

2. Stock Take – Data collection

3. Option Identification – Analysis of current situation, space needs and real estate opportunities

High-level roles and responsibilities

Several stakeholders are mobilized throughout the platform:

Comments can be added by users to communicate with each other. They can be used to call another user to enter an information, to confirm that the part is finished, etc.

Users within the same workspace can be tagged using the sign “@”, and the targeted person will receive an email notification.

In case of wrong entry in the platform, please amend the content and save again.

This section will go into specific details for Common Premises.

FOR ALL USERS (CPC, AGENCY FOCAL POINT, CPWG CHAIR, PREMISES VALIDATION FOCAL POINT):

All staff members collaborating on the CPP have to register on the UNINFO platform. To register to the CP platform, click on the “Register” button of the UN Info welcome page and complete the required information (e.g. name, e-mail, password). Under “workspace”, choose your country. In the case of MCOs, the workspace selected should be the MCO Parent (Fiji, Malaysia, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, etc.). Please note that a dedicated article and explanatory video are available on the helpdesk.

You will receive a confirmation email to finalize the registration. If you do not receive the confirmation email, please access the 'CP - Registration and User Roles' section of the CP FAQ article.

After registration, respective roles are assigned on the platform to staff members.

DCO is responsible for assigning the CPC roles. The CPC then assigns the other relevant roles to the members of his/her team collaborating on the platform.

ROLE ASSIGNMENT BY THE CPC:

Under «Select and Assign Roles », the CPC can assign the rights following the 6 steps below:

2. Region: Leave the region field blank

3. Workspace: Select the appropriate workspace from the dropdown list. In case of MCOs, please select the name of the MCO parent.

The Dashboard page will provide the overview of all workspaces you may be authorized to access/edit. The left panel projects the entire list of workspaces assigned to the user , also accessible in the dropdown . After choosing a country, select the “Common Premises” dashboard . The page will provide the overview of all plans you may be authorized to access and edit.

To start completing a plan for a country, select “Edit” . The plans will appear on the Dashboard under the following nomenclature: Year - Country Premises Plan.

You may proceed to the next step either by clicking the button “Next Step” or selecting “Premises Validation” (Visual 7).

Make sure to save your entries each time you finalize a section of the platform (visual 9).

The lock button appears at step level (e.g. locking the entire step 3 “Premises attributes”) (visual 10). When a Step's completion percentage reaches 95%, it can be locked by the CPC.

It has several impacts:

• When locked, the data cannot be modified by any user.

• At step-level, it will send a signal to the Quality Assurance (QA) focal point that the data entered can be quality assured. It is only when the QA is completed the locked step can be marked as complete by the QA focal point. Which makes the completion percentage of the step 100%. To know more about QA please check the next section (4.6 Quality Assurance).

• Only the CPC can use the lock function at step-level.

The Quality Assurance is usually done by the regional coordinator assigned to your country in coordination with the Common Premises Champions.

The role of the Quality Assurance focal point is to look at data for coherency and pick obvious issues, such as a field erroneously filled with a coma, outrageous numbers e.g., number of staff in the 20, 000 etc.

The Quality Assurance Focal point is not responsible for the data entered nor is expected to know and verify validity of information entered.

Once a whole step has been locked (see previous section “4.5. Lock steps”), the next steps are the following:

1. The Quality Assurance focal point is notified of completion.

2. He/she will then review the data entered in the locked step. Any issues should be raised off the platform via a discussion and in the comment field of the platform to the CPC, who will then act.

3. He/she will “Mark current step as complete” when data is certified, using the button at the top of the page and entering an optional comment (visual 12).

It is possible to verify the progress made in the performance of the stock take exercise by accessing the Progress Report of each workspace . It is accessible directly from the Step 1 of the Country Premises Plan.

Once in, the progress for each step of the stock-take along with the remaining actions to perform are available. Lists of remaining premises/occupants to complete can be accessed by clicking on the various symbols.

Note: A workspace should reach 95% completion in each step to be considered ready for Quality Assurance (QA). Once QA is performed and all steps have been marked as completed, the stock take will reach 100% completion.

The Stock take’s purpose is to collect data at premises and office levels, to establish an accurate up-to-date database of all existing UN premises, any on-going initiatives and projects in the pipeline and space needs of each UN Entity This phase will provide the UNCTs and CPWGs with reliable premises and UN entities data, enabling data-driven consolidation planning.

The stock take part is performed through three different steps, with specific roles assigned to each stakeholder:

· Step 1 – Background

· Step 2 – Premises validation

· Step 3 – Premises attributes

Stakeholder roles will vary throughout the Stock Take phase:

1. Common Services Managers (CSM) are agency focal points of the organization identified as Common Services Manager for this specific premises

Note: Agency focal point able to add/delete occupants of their own entity and enter data for their own entity. CPCs and CSMs are able to add/delete occupants from any entity and enter data for all entities.

The page requires only one action to be performed by the Common Premises Champion (CPC): completing the country background. Please enter the relevant country specific details for Common Premises. For example: size of the UNCT, security level, country context, etc...

Note:

• No action is required in any other fields, being system generated.

• Start date and end date are automatic, because plan is to be reviewed on a yearly basis

• Plan number is automatically generated

The step “Premises validation” focuses on:

1. The validation of the premises data already available in the platform and addition of missing premises

The access to this step is restricted and defined by access rights assigned to each role (see visual 14 for details):

• The Premises validation focal point takes actions in respect of the premises only, namely: check and validate the existing premises data and add new premises.

The page provides the overview of all premises, projects, and initiatives in the country (visual 17). The details of each premises can be reviewed if the folded row is expanded.

There are three types of actions to be performed in this step, detailed in following pages:

- Validate the information for the existing premises

- Add new premises

Once all validation of pre-populated premises data is completed, the Premises validation focal point may add new premises into the country list clicking on “Add premises” (visual 24), for any existing premises missing from the list. Data to be entered is similar to the one entered for existing premises.

Fields index

1. Phase. For existing premises, this field is automatically set to “Premise” and cannot be modified.

2. City. Should be entered if the data in the field is missing or incorrect. This can be performed either through the selection of the relevant city from the drop-down list (visual 20), or manually entered if it is missing in the list. In this case, first mark the field “Cannot find your city” (visual 21).

3. Compound. A compound is made up of several buildings in an enclosed area. A compound housing several premises in different buildings on the compound is a Common Premises even if there is one UN entity per building.

   If the premises is part of a compound, select it from the dropdown list. If the compound is not shown in the list, select the “Not found in the list?” check box and enter its name. The name should allow to uniquely identify the compound within the country. The newly added Compound will be added to the compound dropdown for following premises.

4. Premises name. Enter a premises name that should allow to uniquely identify the premises. Examples of names could be:

   • For Single Premises: [Organization] – [City] – [Office type]

   • For Common Premises: Common Premises - [CSM] – [Other main orgs] – [City]

5. Address. Should be entered if the data in the field is missing or incorrect. To add or to amend, type the address in the field on the first line with the magnifying glass and select the complete address on the dropdown. The address can also be changed or “cleaned” directly in the “Address” field (visual 22).

   To adjust the accuracy of the office geo-location, click on “open map”, drag and drop the pin to the exact location (visual 23), which will automatically revise the data shown in the fields “Latitude” and “Longitude”. Selection on the map is mandatory for coordinates to appear.

6. Status. Indicate the current status of the premise/project/initiative.

   An active premises is a premises under the management of the UN System regardless of UN staff occupying the building/compound or not. In case an active premises is not occupied by any staff, it should remain active in Step 2 and have zero current member of personnel in Step 3 of the CP platform.

   A premises becomes inactive when it no longer falls under the management of the UN – For example when a building is returned to the proprietor.

7. Status details. Record dates and any information/reason associated to its status changes.

8. Occupation approval. Only appears if “Active” is selected under the “Status” field, it represents the formal validation of the premises information by the Premises validation focal point. .This approval does not mean that formal approval for occupation of this premises has been given by UNDSS.

9. Delete button. In case of wrong entry in the platform, please amend the content and save again. In case the premises is not used anymore, please select “inactive”. The “delete” button should only be used in case of premises/projects/initiatives added by mistake/ duplicates in the premises list.

Occupants Level data is entered by the CPC, the Common Services Manager or the Agency Focal Point

Fields index

1. Organization. . Start typing the first letters of the organization and select the occupant’s organization from the dropdown list. Please allow a few seconds for the dropdown to load. If the organization is not shown in the list, select the “Cannot find entry” button below the data field to add a new organization.

2. Name. Add a name, that should combine organization name, office type and city, to uniquely identify the office (e.g., WFP-CO-Nairobi).

4. Office description. Add a short description of the office.

5. Common Services Manager. Select the UN Entity providing the service /or overseeing the service provision of building management and building services. There should be only one Common Services Manager per premise (please add one Common Services Manager for Single Premises as well). For Single Premises select the single only occupant as the CSM.

6. Restriction to relocate. Indicate, if any, important restriction to move the office to another premises. More than one restriction can be selected. If any restrictions are selected, a justification can be uploaded if available. Occupants who have selected any restriction to relocate will not be considered for consolidation projects.

   • Security restriction: secure compound with no potential relocating options

   • Operational restriction: located near government or facilities key to mandate/mission delivery

   • Contractual restriction: the office’s contract cannot be ended

   • Financial restriction: rent-free premises

7. Current work modality refers to working arrangements. Enter the work modality at time of completion, even considering Covid-19 impact such as:

   • Full physical presence whereby the staff member goes to the office every day

   • Remote working whereby the staff member works from home and may come to the office for meetings implying that he/she does not occupy a workstation

   • Hybrid modality meaning a partial remote working arrangement

8. Current number of desks per personnel. Enter the ratio of number of desks/workstations for the selected occupant entity in this premise per personnel. E.g., entering 0.8 means that there are 0.8 desks for 1 personnel, i.e., 8 workstations for 10 people. This number is between 0 and 1.

9. Office Space Requirements : Enter the current and the estimated future number of personnel (in the next five years) in the office for each level. The future number of personnel is usually based on the known staffing trends of the UN Entity or could be estimated at 2-5 % increase. Current and future number of personnel will be used in further analysis of space needs:

   • The sum of national and international personnel must match the sum of personnel number indicated in the “current personnel” column of the space requirements table.

   • The area calculated in the space requirements table is strictly for the working space. The “Additional space requirements” table displays the space needed for support functions (corridors, storage space, toilets, etc.), in accordance with TTCP guidance/policy.

   • Please note that the calculated figures are estimates based on the TTCP guidance/ policy and won’t necessarily match the exact situation for the premises occupied. The calculated figures will be used for identifying consolidation scenarios. For instance, the platform may calculate 500m2 for office area, while the actual situation in the premises is 450 m2 area.

10. Costs. Enter annual recurring costs (in USD) incurred by the office for building services in each category. The fields “Other” costs are used for all the ones not listed on the platform. In case of joint contracts, an estimation should be provided for each sub-cost with the total adding to the cost of the joint contract.

    • In case of a shared service, only the share of cost paid by this occupant should be included.

    • In case of joint contracts, an estimation should be provided for each sub-cost with the total adding to the cost of the joint contract.

    • In case the occupant is being paid by another occupant for certain building services, the cost entered should not include the share of the other occupants' cost. (E.g., if Occupant 1 is responsible for handing 100$ to the landlord for its share of the maintenance (70$) plus the share of Occupant 2 (30$), Occupant 1 maintenance cost should be 70$ (not 100$) while Occupant 2 enters 30$.

Notes: In case of a premise without any active occupant, please register the managing agency as occupant and indicate 0 for the number of personnel.

Under construction

This section aims at capturing data on the contractual agreements that exist for the premises. Contractual agreement can be added clicking on “Add contractual agreement”. Please note that parent agreements should be added first. For more information on parent agreements, please refer to .

Fields Index

1. Upload contractual agreement. Upload the contractual agreement document.

2. Name. Enter a name to designate the contract. It should uniquely identify the contract. (e.g. Lease agreement WFP-UNFPA).

4. Agreement type. Select if the agreement is a Standard lease, Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) or Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

   • MOA – Memorandum of Agreement is usually between the UN and a Government or external party.

   • MOU - Interagency Memorandum of Understanding – UN Entities sign an MOU detailing their share of responsibilities and occupation of a common premises. The lead agency is stated in the MOU.

   • Ownership document - Any written document certifying UN's ownership right over a piece of land, a building or a portion of it.

   • Lease - legal document between the UN and the building owner (other than the Government).

   • If the agreement is a sub-lease but not a MOA or MOU, you should select “Lease” and enter the parent agreement in the previous data field (see point 3).

5. Agreement status. Select between Draft or Final the status of the contractual agreement.

   • Draft should also be selected when it is not possible to provide a formal document certifying the right of a UN entity to occupy/use the building

6. Lease end date: Enter the lease end date when available. In case of open-ended agreements, please write the date as 12-31-2099.

7. Lease notice period: The maximum number or months (only composed of numbers without decimal or text) prior to the end date of an agreement to notify the landlord of intention to renew a contract.

8. Rent x market value. Please estimate if the rent is above market value, below or at par.

9. Lessor name. Select the lessor from the list. If the lessor cannot be found, then click on “Cannot Find Your Organization” and enter the missing lessor name. In that case, some other information will be asked: country, region/state, city, postal code and street.

10. Lessee. Select the lessee(s) involved in the contractual agreement. The list is prepopulated with the occupants included in the premises.

11. Lease services responsibilities. Specify the responsible party (Lessor, Lessee, Shared, Other) for each service mentioned (Utilities, Cashier, Internet provider, etc.). Select “Not applicable” if the service is not provided or not applicable to your situation. Note that shared responsibilities for a service means that the cost for the service is shared both by the lessor and the lessees.

Premises Level data is entered by the CPC or the Common Services Manager of the premises.

Fields Index

1. Description. Enter premises description, to uniquely identify the premises, its status (temporary or long term), occupants and office types (e.g. UNICEF CO premises hosting UNDP project and UNIFEM CO).

2. Government co-located. When a UN entity is located within a government building housing both government offices and UN offices.

3. Government managed. Only visible if Government co-located is set to “Yes”. Select if the premises is managed by the Government.

4. Premises/Building area is the area of the building or the portion of the building occupied by the UN Entity/ies. This area may or may not be listed in contractual documents such as Leases. In a government co-located premise/building enter only the portion of the building occupied by the UN Entity/ies. The Premise/Building Area excludes outdoor spaces such as gardens, outdoor parking, etc. It is entered in square meters.

5. Premises capacity is the number of desks/workstations in the premise, occupied and unoccupied.

6. Premises Ownership. The options for the ownership situation are:

   • UN Owned – The UNS or a UN entity owns the building

   • Nominal Lease (Government) – When the Government provides a building for a nominal rental fee (e.g., 1USD/year)

   • Nominal Lease (Commercial) – When the UN pays a nominal rental fee to a landlord

   • Nominal Lease (Other) – When the UN pays a nominal rental fee other than to the government or a commercial landlord

   • Donated right to use – Rent free building provided by the Government

   • Commercial lease at a preferential rate – The UN occupies the building at a discounted rental rate compared to market prices at the time of signing the lease agreement

   • Commercial lease - The UN occupies the building/compound under an agreement/lease with a landlord

   • Lease to own – The UN occupies the building for a rental fee for a fixed period of time after which the ownership of the building is transferred to the UNS/UN Entity

   • PPP Agreement – Occupation of the premises is on the basis of a Public Private partnership Memorandum of Agreement whereby the UN entities repay the capital investment cost for an agreed time after which it enjoys a zero cost occupation for an agreed period of time or as long as the UN operates in the country. The UN however does not acquire ownership of the building/premises.

   • Partial UN ownership – The UNS or a UN entity owns part of the building.

   • Government lease - When the UN holds a regular lease with the government and does not have a preferential rate.

7. Restrictions to host. Indicate, if any, important restriction to accommodate another entity in the premise. More than one restriction can be selected. If any restrictions are selected, a justification document can be attached if available whereby the UN Entity confirms in writing (can be an email or note) of inability to accommodate another UN Entity in the premises. Premises selecting any restrictions to host will be removed from any potential consolidation projects.

   • Contractual restriction: rent-free premises limited to one single UN agency.

   • Security restriction: restricted access measures unsuitable for all types of offices (e.g. public access, access for people of concern).

   • Operational and functional restrictions could refer to any reason pertaining to the functionality of the premises or the operations being carried out that prevents co location with other UN Entities e.g., A vaccination office may not be able to accommodate another UN Entity in their building

8. Planned investments. Planned investments are capital maintenance or refurbishment planned on main building components such as roof, exterior, infrastructure or interior, e.g replacement of electrical systems. Planned investments go beyond regular or adhoc maintenance. Select “Yes” if there is such investment planned, and enter the amounts. Total investment amount is a mandatory field, while the breakdown is optional, to be provided if available.

Compounds are attributed to a type depending on the organizations and offices type located on the compound (Visual 31):

• Common Premises Compound: occupants of more than 1 organization are located on the compound

• Government co-located Compound type is: UN occupants are located within a government compound

• Single Premises Compound: occupants of only one organization are located on the compound

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Under construction

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The “Premises attributes” step allows to specify further information about the premises, about its occupants and about the contractual agreements linking them.

To enter data, the user should first select the premises for which data shall be entered on the “Premises” dropdown field at the top of the page (visual 26). Premises need to be validated in prior to this step. The dropdown field will only display premises validated in Step 2.

This step is composed of 3 main sections:

1. Premises-level data, asking more detailed information on the premises such as a description, the space and capacity, if there are any restrictions to host and the planned investments.

2. Occupant-level data, asking detailed information about the offices/occupants, such as space and capacity, office type, work modality, number of personnel per grade, costs.

3. Contractual agreements, asking information on the contracts linking the occupants of the premises.

Users:

• The CPC and the Common Services Manager (CSM) of each premises enter premises-level data, verify the occupants list (add and delete occupants if needed) and complete the occupant’s level data. They also enter contractual agreements.

• The Agency focal point (AFP) can add/delete occupants of its own entity and enters occupants' data for its own entity. An AFP also add contractual agreements, in general for its own entity.

Under construction

Under construction

Under construction

The Common Premises platform tracks both ongoing projects and initiatives which are ongoing discussions of potential projects. The difference is outlined below for each category of consolidation modality which serves a guidance on defining an ongoing endeavor as a project or an initiative.

1. Consolidation within existing Premises

   This scenario is when an entity in a single premises is moving into another existing UN premises. The accommodating building can be another existing single premises or common premises or an existing One UN House.

   Record this as a project if the agreement has been reached between both parties through an email or other documentation, and the scope of any refurbishment and move date are agreed upon or are being worked on.

   Record this as an initiative if an agreement has not yet been reached and the project is being discussed between the UN entities

2. Government provided rent free building-

   The Government is either building a new building for the UN or is refurbishing an existing building to accommodate the UN. Record this as a project if:

   • For a new construction – A site has been identified and approved by DSS; the space needs have been communicated to the Government and a Letter of Interest has been signed by all participating agencies.

   • For an existing building – The space needs have been communicated to the Government: a building has been identified and approved by DSS and agreed upon with the UN.

   Any project that has reached a more advance stage such as design and construction are recorded as ongoing projects in the stock take portion of the platform

   Record this as an initiative if ongoing discussions have not yet been concretized /formalized.

3. Entity Funded Construction

   Entity funds the construction of building on land provided by the Government or owned by an Entity or if an existing building is bought and refurbished.

   Record this as a project if (meet all criteria below):

   • A land agreement already exists and.

   • Space requirements have been calculated and;

   • Participating agencies have signed a Letter of Interest and have confirmed that they will fund the project.

   Record this as an initiative if:

   The project is in discussion phase and is yet to be agreed upon/formalized.

4. Consolidated Lease in a commercial building

   Two or more agencies pursue a joint lease agreement in a commercial office building .

   Record this as a project if (meet all criteria below):

   • The space needs have been established and;

   • A building has been identified and approved by DSS and the UN.

   Record this as an initiative if the project is at discussion stage and is yet to be agreed upon/formalized.

5. Public Private Partnership

   In this scenario the Government contracts a developer to design and construct the building for the UN based on a Memorandum of Agreement between the UN and the Government where the repayment terms and use of the building.

   This is considered as an initiative when discussions are ongoing, and agreements have not yet been reached and qualifies to be recorded as a project when the following have been met as a minimum:

   Record this as a project if (meet all criteria below):

   • A letter of interest has been signed by all participating agencies and;

   • Space needs have been calculated and;

   • Cost benefit analysis has been performed based on a preliminary design or estimated building area and;

   • Estimated cost of the PPP has been established.

   Record this as an initiative if the project is at discussion stage and is yet to be agreed upon/formalized.

6. Land provided by the Government

   • All land that has already been provided by the Government is recorded as an initiative unless a construction project as per above is ongoing on the parcel of land.

   • Any prospective land grant to the UN system is also recorded as an initiative.

   • Additionally, any parcel of land provided by the Government with a prospective rent-free building is recorded with Category “Government provided rent free building.

Notes:

1. As it appears on the UNSMS database

2. An office type included in baseline is a candidate for consolidation

The parent agreement is the main contract between the lead agency and the external entity (lessor). It should be the first agreement to be entered on the platform. Any internal UN agreement (MoU) falling under this parent agreement is then entered.

All subsequent agreements should indicate the name of the parent agreement in the field “Parent Agreement”. Please refer to the contract diagram below for more information.

Note: The field “Parent Agreement” for the main parent agreement should be entered as N/A on the platform as it is the main contract.