UN Women BCCMA

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) currently operates in over one hundred and thirty (130) locations globally. Most of these locations differ in terms of size and type of presence. Per UN system-wide policy CEB/2014/HLCM/17, each location is required to have a Crisis Management and Business Continuity Plan, and to carry out an annual test. To maximize time its personnel can dedicate to core business functions; UN Women intends to automate Crisis Management and Business Continuity planning, testing and execution process through user-friendly Business Continuity and Crisis Management Application. The smartphone App will mirror tools implemented and run on the BCA service. They are, a Business Continuity tool developed to facilitate planning, testing and execution of business recovery processes, and a Crisis Management tool designed to assist with crisis management with predefined plans, guidelines and check-lists. The App is based on the Business Continuity concept developed by UN Women. The concept is focused on three (3) key areas; i. Functions, critical functions defined by managers; ii. Office and Critical Assets, key physical assets required for organizational activities to be conducted; iii. Services, core organizational processes. Beside automating the planning process, the BCA intends to remove the requirement for paper documents and uses plans primarily in electronic format. Additional separate element of BCA is the Crisis Management tool. Crisis Management tool consists of a set of predefined plans, guidelines and check-lists designed to provide assistance to managers and personnel during a crisis.