On 1 October, staff in Professional and higher categories (P-1 to D-2) and Field Service category (FS-6 and FS-7) at all duty stations should have received an email from abdio@un.org via research.net inviting them to complete the Global Out-of-Area Survey conducted by the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC).
The survey must be completed by 31 October.
This survey has important consequences for your post adjustment (PA). As an international civil servant, your PA ensures that you maintain purchasing power parity with New York, regardless of your duty station. The calculation of your PA depends, among other things, on the expenses incurred at your duty station, but also on those incurred outside the country of your duty station. That component of the post adjustment index is called Out-of-Area.
Out-of-Area expenses include holidays, private travel, education of children living abroad, purchases that cannot be made locally, and the cost of maintaining and paying for a house in a foreign location or back home.
Out-of-area spending is done in many different locations. To simplify matters, the ICSC creates a single out-of-area price index that is based on the prices in a basket of 26 countries where staff report most of their foreign spending. Currently, the five largest countries in this basket are France, US, UK, Canada and Kenya.
The out-of-area component is therefore part of your PA. This is why it is so important that staff participate in the survey.
If only a small number of staff complete the survey, you may see this important part of your PA dragged down in value. Completing the survey will ensure that UN salaries maintain their purchasing power across various duty stations.
Please fill out the survey accurately. You are required to state how much of your net salary (i.e. what is sent to your bank account after deductions) is spent in different countries. You will need to use your best estimate. In doing so, do not underestimate spending in high-cost countries on items such as hotels, restaurants, taxis, transport, flights, or foreign purchases such as clothes and cosmetics. Any official travel, however, should not be counted.
If you wish to have more information, please check the ICSC micro-site set up to support staff in completing the survey which is available via this link: https://surveys.unicsc.org/COLD/Home/OutOfArea.
Thank you for participating in this survey!
