About

The UNAMnet aims to bring together UN accountability mechanisms/offices/functions and their practitioners and to contribute to strengthening their development by sharing best practices, supporting institutional capacity-building and creating/sharing knowledge.

1. Create an interactive community of UN accountability mechanism offices/functions, including nascent mechanisms, and their practitioners.

2. Foster a better understanding of accountability and the role of accountability mechanisms within organizations and across the UN system.

3. Exchange knowledge and experiences, best practices, case studies, and lessons learned, with emphasis on the UN context in which we operate.

4. Assist with institutional capacity-building / technical support to scale up UN accountability mechanisms offices / functions.

5. Explore the possibilities of greater harmonization among members for joint initiatives (e.g., outreach events, intake, expert rosters, referrals, etc.).

6. Provide a safe space to discuss challenges and institutional barriers to effective construction, growth, and operation of accountability mechanisms and their respective mandates in the UN system.

Other goals may be added as their relevance becomes apparent.

Secretariat

The network will be supported by an UNAMnet Secretariat. The Secretariat will be hosted by a member who volunteers to coordinate the activities at its own cost and is accepted by the other members. UNDP's Social and Environmental Compliance Unit (SECU) will serve as Secretariat from August 2023 through July2026. After this period, the UNAMnet members will convene to vote for a new Secretariat.

Membership criteria

Offices/functions can be members of the UNAMnet if they:

• Are part of a United Nations entity such as an agency, fund, programme, or organ of the UN.

• Consider social and environmental impacts/concerns and have or will have a mandate (or formal intent) to respond directly to complaints from individuals or communities who believe that they or the environment have been or may be harmed by their parent organization’s activities and that social and environmental safeguard policies would underpin the basis of such a response.

• (Or their parent institution) have put in place structural elements or procedures to promote the operational independence of the mechanism, accessibility of the mechanism to potential complainants, and make their cases and operations transparent.

• Have at least one staff member/consultant assigned on a partial or full-time basis to work on criterion #2 above.

Principles of cooperation

All members shall aim to create an atmosphere of trust that enables meaningful collaboration.

• Each accountability mechanism office/function operates within the context of its own parent institution and related policies, including those on independence, autonomy, applicable standards, decision-making power, and confidentiality. 

• Members can share relevant information via the UNAMnet document repository and/or live dialogue. Unless otherwise stated, all information shall be treated as internal to the UNAMnet membership.

• Unless otherwise stated, all meetings amongst UNAMnet members will take place under the Chatham House Rule, which states that during meetings ‘participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”

• Members are willing to explore opportunities to collaborate in joint initiatives, knowledge sharing, pooling of resources, and other collaboration/coordination. These principles of cooperation aim to reflect the aspirations of the UNAMnet members and shall not be read as binding in nature. It is recognized and understood that these principles may evolve over time.