Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

| Atlas Financials | General Issues |

Atlas Financials

  • COAs:

    JPO COAs follow a specific setup applicable to all JPOs administered by the JPOSC. For an overview of this setup, please click here.

    • UNFPA JPOs sponsored by Canada:

    Following UNFPA's decision to take over all accounting responsibilities for their Canadian-sponsored JPOs as of 8 March 2005, all payments made to the JPOs under this category should reflect the following COA in processing the payments:
      GLBU: UNFPA
      Fund: 2CA00
      Department: As applicable, local office department
      All other parts of the COA remain UNFILLED
      Approvals of payment vouchers are done by the country office (or owner of the local departments respectively)
    Please note that this only applies to Canadian-sponsored UNFPA JPOs, and not to others serving with UNFPA.



  • Approvals:
    All Atlas approval requests, or any further clarification requests, should be submitted to jposc.payments@undp.org.


  • Advances:
    All advances made to JPOs (except for salary advances which are processed by the JPOSC) are administered locally, including the reimbursement of the open items. The COA to be used is also a local one.


  • Salaries:
    Monthly salary portions (MPO) paid at the duty station upon the request of Payroll are not to be charged to the JPO COA.

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    General Issues

  • Co-funded extensions:
    Extensions of JPOs to 3rd/4th year on ALD contract is permissible without the normally required one-month break-in-service (this exception only applies for JPOs and only in case of co-funding by the donor);


  • Relocation grant:
    The Relocation grant is $6,000 for single JPOs and $9,000 for JPOs with recognized dependants.


  • UNJSPF:
    The participation in the UNJSPF plan is not automatic, but depends on the donor-specific agreements.


  • DTTA:
    • The duty-related travel and training allowance (DTTA) is provided by the sponsoring Government for work-related activities, such as participation in seminars, workshops, round-table discussions at national, regional, sub-regional and/or international level, etc.
    • The DTTA is an allocation made on an annual basis and is available only during the donor-funded period of the JPO assignment. The amount of the allocation per annum is donor-specific.
    • The DTTA is normally not to be used to cover the expenses of a) university courses or degrees, b) PPO Course (programme policy and operations induction course), c) language courses, d) IT courses, e) field trips to project sites.

    If in doubt, please consult with the relevant HRA for more details, or for more information on DTTA usage, please click here.

  • Travel:
    JPO travel is always on economy class, regardless of travel time.


  • General Operations:
    For general advice and guidelines on the operational responsibilities towards JPOs, please click here.


  • General Supervision:
    For general advice and guidelines on the supervisory responsibilities and expectations from a JPO, please click here.


  • JPO Conversions:
    For guidelines on JPO co-funding arrangements, please click here.

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