PERMANENT COUNCIL OF THE OEA/Ser.GORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES CAAP/GT/RVPP-78/111/

14 January 2011COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE Original: English

AND BUDGETARY AFFAIRS

Working Group on the Reviewof OAS Programs

WORKING PAPERPROPOSED UPDATE OF CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS COSTS

FUNDED BY THE OAS TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN 2011AS MANDATED BY RESOLUTION CP/RES. 872 (1459/04)

(Presented by the Department of Conferences and Meetings Management)

1 This document will serve as a basis for updating resolution CP/RES. 872 (1459/04)

WORKING PAPERPROPOSED UPDATE OF CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS COSTS

FUNDED BY THE OAS TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN 2011AS MANDATED BY RESOLUTION CP/RES. 872

December 31, 2010

MANDATE:

The objective of this report is to comply with operative paragraph 10 of Resolution CP/RES. 872 (1459/04) “Update of Costs of Conferences and Meetings Funded by the OAS,” adopted on December 15, 2004, which instructs the General Secretariat to review annually the figures used by the Department of Conference and Meetings Management (DCMM) to prepare conference budgets. The General Secretariat is required submit a report to the Permanent Council before November 30 of each year, advising them whether the figures should be updated or not. Furthermore, if the Permanent Council updates the figures, DCMM and the various areas, entities and organs of the Organization shall apply them when estimating the costs of their meetings and conferences.

Since 2004, the Department of Conferences and Meetings Management has submitted reports and costs update proposals several times. The latest submissions were in March of 2008, October, December of 2009 and December 2010. In a CAAP meeting held on December 6 th, it was decided that the Working Group will address the issue.

Resolution CP/RES. 872 instructs the General Secretariat to use the following figures when preparing a budget for an OAS meeting:

At headquarters Away from headquarters

One-day meeting US$18,478 US$23,434

Two-day meeting US$31,191 US$36,683

Three-day meeting US$43,905 US$49,932

The above amounts are totals composed of budgetary inputs that are broken down for meetings of one, two and three days at Headquarters and away from Headquarters as referenced in the Annex I of this report.

BUDGET INCREASES

The need for an update of the pay rates has become more urgent in the last two years in view of the gap that exists between the payments made by the OAS to free-lance interpreters and

translators and the payments made by other international organizations and private sector companies that provide conference services in the Washington D.C. area.

Since 2004, international organizations have steadily increased the daily rate paid to free-lance interpreters and translators while the OAS rates have remained the same. The gaps in pay have become so significant, that the Department of Conferences and Meetings Management (DCMM) finds it to be increasingly difficult to hire qualified and experienced interpreters to provide services to the meetings of the political bodies.

This situation is especially true for Portuguese and French interpretation and translation services, because there is a smaller pool of interpreters and translators for those languages. The higher rates paid by other international organizations and private sector companies attracts the better-qualified interpreters to their meetings, leaving DCMM to scramble for whoever they can hire for the OAS meetings. This situation forces DCMM to provide OAS meetings with interpreters hired at the last minute, and in many cases, not being able to provide at all interpreters for the Portuguese and/or French booths. In April and May, 2010, there were no French and Portuguese interpretation services available for some meetings.2 Chart A below shows the payment gap between the OAS and other international organizations and the private sector language service companies.

- CHART A -Cost Comparison for Interpretation Services Pay Rates between the OAS, Other International Organizations and Private Sector

$610 $575 $580 $580 $575

$850$750

$490

$660

$0

$200

$400

$600

$800

$1,000

OAS PAHO IDB World Bank IMF U.S. StateDepartment

MultilingualExperts

CSI AmericanLang Svcs

The private sector companies and the State Department do not follow the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) works schedule rules. They pay their interpreters for 8 hours of work per day. However, the OAS and the other International Organizations pay according to the AIIC’s rules, which require that interpreters be paid for a 6-hour day.

The average gap between the OAS rate and the rates paid by other international organizations such as the World Bank is almost 20%. The private sector Washington D.C. based companies Multilingual Experts, Conference Systems Inc, and American Language Services were included

2 In May 2010, there were no French interpreters available, neither for the CAJP meeting on May 5, nor for the Seventh Inter-American Meeting of Electoral Management Bodies on May 5 and 6, 2010.

on this table as an example. They also compete for the limited pool of highly qualified interpreters that provide interpretation in the languages these companies usually employ.

The rates they pay interpreters are 2/3 of what they charge their clients for their services. The rates that these companies charge their clients are as follows: Multilingual Experts charges $800 - $1,000; Conference Systems Inc charges $1,125; American Language Services charges $960 - $1,280.

It is important to understand that these companies rarely deal with meetings where more than two languages are spoken. They usually provide interpreters for bi-lingual meetings such as English/Spanish. The free-lance interpreters hired by the OAS are able to speak more than two languages and are used to working in multi-language meetings.

Consequently, outsourcing language services to private sector companies is not an option for the OAS because it would be more costly than paying for free-lance interpreters and the services they provide would not match the OAS need for interpreters capable of handling multi-language meetings. Additionally, these companies do not have interpreters familiar with the OAS lexicon.

Contracts for Conference Services

This proposal presents a more realistic gross daily rate of $550 for interpretation services. It is a small increase of only $60 but it will make the OAS competitive vis-à-vis the other International Organizations. For the same reason, this proposal presents a small increase for document translation rates, room attendants, control operators and OAS staff overtime rates as follows on Chart B since they are part of CP/RES.872:

- CHART B -Proposed 2011 Contract

Rates Increases

$490$390

$170 $100 $108$35

$60

$60

$32$30$3

$20

$38

$190$130 $140

$550

$450

$0

$300

$600

InterpretationServices

TranslationServices per day

TranslationServices per word

1000 words

Room Attendants Control Operators Overtime

This means that the budgeted costs for contracts for a one, two and three day meeting at headquarters and away from headquarters would increase as follows:

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BUDGET DECREASES

In order to compensate for these proposed rate increases, we recommend a decrease in other cost components of a meeting budget, which would result in an overall budget decrease. The decrease would take place for document translation before and after a meeting, equipment and materials, communication costs, and travel costs for meetings away from headquarters.

Translation of Documents Before and After a Meeting

Due to a series of cost efficiency measures, the budgeted cost for document translation and reproduction, before and after a meeting, would decrease about 23% because the average number of pages translated for these meetings has been about 30% less than what was originally estimated when the CP/RES. 872 was drafted. In addition, the number of printed documents has been greatly reduced with the implementation of DCMM’s Strategic Plan, which included the printing on demand and paper-light policies. Therefore, even though we propose to increase the rate per word translated from $0.17 to $0.19 per word, the total budgeted cost would decrease because of the number of words translated would be less in the budget calculation.

The following table shows how the new calculation would be done:

- CHART D - Translation of Documents Before and After Meetings at Headquarters and Away from

Headquarters

$20,760

$10,380

$15,570

$8,000

$12,000

$16,000

$-

$5,000

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

$25,000

1-DAY MEETING 2-DAY MEETING 3-DAY MEETING

Current translation cost before/after the meeting (RES.872)

2011 Proposed costs for translation before/after

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Please keep in mind that these efficiencies have already taken place in practice during the past year. This proposal refers only to budgeted costs for the translation and printing of documents before and after a meeting. When creating a budget for a meeting, all areas of the General Secretariat will take into consideration a reduced figure for translation and reproduction of documents before and after a meeting, since they are essential in the implementation of this new way of doing business within the OAS.

Overtime

The proposed decrease in the number of budgeted hours for OAS Staff overtime in resolution CP/RES.872 would compensate for the proposed $3 increase in overtime rate of $35 to $38. We can see this in the following table:

Equipment and Materials

We also propose a decrease in the flat rates charged for the usage of equipment, materials and coffee service supplies. In addition, communication budgeted costs would be decreased by 100% because most communications are currently done through email and internet instead of telephone and fax.

Travel Costs for Meetings Away from Headquarters

Travel costs financed by the Regular Fund would be decreased by 100%. We propose that the Regular Fund budgeted costs approved to finance meetings away from headquarters be at the same level of what they would cost at Headquarters, up to the amounts to be approved in a

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revised resolution CP/RES. 872. The host country would finance all additional costs incurred for an OAS meeting to take place outside of Headquarters. An example of what a host country would pay is shown on Annex II.

Consequently, the host country would also finance the travel for the three people currently financed by the Regular Fund as allowed by operative paragraph 5 of resolution CP/RES. 872. The following table shows the proposed cost reductions in travel:

The implementation of the program to expand the roster of interpreters and translators in the member states has proved to be successful. The increase of the pool of local translators and interpreters, as well as the translation of documents via the internet has reduced the need for translators and interpreters to travel to meeting sites. This reduction would compensate for the proposed increase costs in travel that the member states have to bear.

Video Conferences:

In addition, videoconferencing services provided by DCMM has also reduced the amount of travel to the member states because it has promoted more virtual meetings in the preparatory phases for meetings away from headquarters. Videoconferencing between headquarters and the member states has tripled in number since its inception, creating a very conservative estimated savings of $205,324 during its 9 months of operation in 2009 and $362,555 in 2010.

The OAS recovered its investment of $82,392 spent to remodel the TL-76 multimedia room into a video conference facility on its fifth month of operation and more than doubled its return on investment by the end of the year. The ROI on the first year was $205,324/ $82,392 = 249% (Estimated travel savings / Book value for remodeling the TL-76 room).

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By combining the proposed increases with the proposed decreases for 2011, there would be net effect on the total amounts as follows:

Notice that the Regular Fund 2011 proposed budget for meeting at headquarters would become the same as the budget for meeting away from headquarters. The detail changes are found on Annex III of this document.

CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, the efficiencies that have been achieved by implementing paperless meetings, communications done through the Internet, more efficient use of equipment and materials, the use of video conferencing services to replace travel, and the shifting of the Regular Fund travel costs to the member states justify the lowering of the budget figures to match this new reality. The proposed budget decreases more than compensate for the proposed rate increase for language services. The advantage of this proposal is that the OAS becomes more competitive to ensure highly qualified language services while at the same time achieving savings for the Regular Fund. Given this trend of increasing efficiencies in the delivery of conferences and meetings services, DCMM will do an automatic review of the CP/RES. 872 every two years.

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ANNEX I

CURRENT RATES 2010

ONE DAY MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

TWO DAY MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

TWO DAY MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

10

ONE DAY MEETING AWAY FROM HEADQUARTERS

TWO DAY MEETING AWAY FROM HEADQUARTERS

THREE DAY MEETING AWAY FROM HEADQUARTERS

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ANNEX II

PROPOSED 2011 TRAVEL COSTS PAID BY THE HOST COUNTRY FOR MEETINGS AWAY FROM HEADQUARTERS

Note: the amounts include an estimated airfare, per diem and terminal expenses.This table does not include the travel costs for OAS staff members from the Technical Areas.

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ANNEX III2011 PROPOSED BUDGET CHANGES FOR MEETINGS AT HEADQUARTERS

ONE DAY MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

TWO DAY MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

THREE DAY MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

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2011 PROPOSED BUDGET CHANGES FOR MEETINGS AWAY FROM

HEADQUARTERS

ONE DAY MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

TWO DAY MEETING AWAY FROM HEADQUARTERS

THREE DAY MEETING AWAY FROM HEADQUARTERS

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