The Administration Unit plays a lead role in driving the efficient and effective management of the administrative aspects of the European and North Atlantic Office, Paris, with the ultimate aim to optimize the use of the scarce resources while enabling the continuous development of the ICAO regional functioning.
The eight General Services staff, led by the Administrative Specialist, work on a wide range of key administrative activities, such as human resources, finance/accounting, and the management of mission travel. The team is also responsible for managing the building, running conference services, as well as providing information, communication and technology services.
The Administration Unit strives to provide high-quality services to all its colleagues, and to the many delegates and officials visiting the EUR/NAT Office. Its work is instrumental to the successful conduct of everyday activities of the EUR/NAT Office, as well as the ones of the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), hosted by ICAO in the same building. Currently, the Unit supports 44 ICAO staff members, of which 27 are employed at EUR/ NAT, and 17 at ECAC. In addition, the EUR/NAT Office and ECAC host experts seconded by their national Government, as it is currently the case for two experts from Turkey seconded to ICAO.
The Unit is faced with many challenges, of which striking an efficient balance between the increased workload and limited resources counts among the most demanding. The scope of work has changed over the years, requiring constant adaptation to respond to the new tasks related to the evolving mandate of the EUR/NAT Office. Two examples of significant administrative projects EUR/NAT set itself to implement in the future include the renovation of the building façade and other works and the modernization of the physical ICT network together with the relocation of the network servers/ICT equipment.
This article was originally written for the ICAO EUR/NAT Office’s Newsletter (Issue 1) on May 2017. A full list of their newsletters can be found here.