Review of Staff Recruitment Policies and Practices in the United Nations system organizations (JIU/REP/2026/3)

The Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) is pleased to announce the release of its review on staff recruitment policies and practices in the United Nations system organizations, prepared by Inspector Toshiya Hoshino.

Included in the JIU 2025 programme of work and covering all 28 JIU participating organizations, the review analyses the adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency of recruitment planning, processes and tools; evaluates competitiveness, fairness, integrity and transparency and related internal control, governance, oversight and accountability mechanisms; and considers inter-agency coordination mechanisms and harmonization across organizations to help UN system organizations overhaul their still conventional staff recruitment policies and practices by making them more strategic and data driven in a highly digitalized world. 

The review found that recruitment remains marked by recurring, often bureaucratic bottlenecks and is widely perceived as cumbersome and insufficiently user-friendly a at time when the UN is expected to be more future-ready under the unprecedented level of resource constraints. Human resources capacity constraints, fragmented and non-interoperable platforms, uneven workforce planning, long recruitment timelines and insufficient transparency continue to affect recruitment processes. While artificial intelligence-assisted tools offer potential to optimize recruitment, their use requires human oversight, accountability, transparency and auditability. 

The report contains seven formal recommendations: five addressed to executive heads and two to legislative organs and/or governing bodies. The measures outlined in the report will enable staff recruitment to advance in several key areas, including improving vacancy visibility and candidate experience; expanding the use of common tools and shared services; developing guidance on the use of artificial intelligence; ensuring that merit-based recruitment delivers diverse outcomes; supporting the mutual recognition of recent reference and background checks; strengthening the monitoring of recruitment timelines; and improving reporting on recruitment timeliness, efficiency and corrective action. 

Read more:

Click here to access the report

Click here to access the supplementary paper

Click here to access the review highlights