Evaluation of UNHCR's Global Fleet Management
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CENTRALIZED ES/2018/13 Evaluation of UNHCR’s Global Fleet Management EVALUATION REPORT DECEMBER 2018 Conducted by: Mariane Arsenault, Team Leader Esther Rouleau, Deputy Team Leader José Miguel Fernández Gomez, Fleet Management Expert Csoban Somodi, Pierre-Yves Yanni, Economists UNHCR Evaluation Service UNHCR’s Evaluation Policy confirms UNHCR’s commitment to support accountability, learning and continual improvement through the systematic examination and analysis of organisational strategies, policies, and programmes. Evaluations are guided by the principles of independence, impartiality, credibility and utility, and are undertaken to enhance the organization’s performance in addressing the protection, assistance and solution needs of refugees, stateless people and other persons of concern. Evaluation Service United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Case Postale 2500 1211 Genève 2 Switzerland www.unhcr.org Published by UNHCR Evaluation Service Copyright © 2018 UNHCR This document is issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for general distribution. All rights are reserved. Reproduction is authorized, except for commercial purposes, provided UNHCR is acknowledged. Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this Evaluation Report are those of the Evaluation Team, and do not necessarily represent the views of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The depiction and use of boundaries, geographic names and related data shown on maps and included in lists, tables, and documents in this Evaluation Report are not warranted to be error free, nor do they necessarily imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNHCR or the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. UNHCR GLOBAL FLEET MANAGEMENT EVALUATION I Acknowledgements The evaluation team would like to thank all those who contributed to this evaluation. We are especially grateful to staff and management from UNHCR Country Operations in Algeria, Chad, Colombia, Kenya and Lebanon and the UNHCR Offices in Geneva and Budapest. We also thank all UNHCR partners at country levels who agreed to be consulted during the evaluation. Special thanks go to the staff of the UNHCR Office of Evaluation for their overall guidance and support. © UNIVERSALIA UNHCR GLOBAL FLEET MANAGEMENT EVALUATION I Logistics Hubs where vehicles are fitted with accessories and shipped to country operations; 4) Executive A disposal policy and related processes to ensure the periodic renewal of the fleet (i.e., every five Summary years or 150,000 kilometres); 5) A self-insurance scheme that is mandatory for all UNHCR vehicles, including vehicles operated by partners under a Background rights-of-use agreement; 6) FleetWave, a fleet management software for managing the rental programme and insurance scheme at the HQ UNHCR’s Global Fleet Management (GFM) level, and to track costs related to fuel, project was introduced in 2014 to address maintenance and repair; 7) A Vehicle Tracking shortcomings in the organization’s decentralized System (VTS), installed on all GFM vehicles, which fleet management practices (from procurement monitors movements, location and behaviors of to operation and asset disposal) which were a vehicle; 8) standardized GFM training for staff underdeveloped in comparison with other in country operations as part of a larger effort to humanitarian organizations such as the World build UNHCR fleet management capacities. Food Programme (WFP), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and the International Committee Purpose, Scope and of the Red Cross (ICRC). Methodology GFM’s fleet management function is now centralized at headquarters in Budapest, As GFM’s Fleet Strategy is coming to the end of Hungary. The GFM team has 31 staff who are its first implementation cycle in 2018, this responsible for functions related to vehicle evaluation takes stock of progress to date and procurement and rental, insurance, disposal, and identifies areas for improvement to provide input data management. Seven GFM staff are located for the next strategic cycle. Therefore, the main in regional offices in Dakar, Amman and Nairobi purpose of this evaluation is learning. The and manage the vehicle disposal process in evaluation also serves an accountability purpose, countries where UNHCR operates. assessing to the extent possible the degree to GFM adopted a five-year Fleet Strategy (2014- which a centralized GFM has improved the cost- 2018), which has three mains goals: effectiveness of UNHCR’s fleet management compared with the previous decentralized 1) To improve the efficiency of the UNHCR system. light vehicle fleet The evaluation covers 2) To improve the road safety of the UNHCR light vehicles, UNHCR fleet including those used by UNHCR personnel and by partners, and these aspects of the GFM 3) To minimize the environmental impacts policy and strategy: 1) the Global Fleet of UNHCR vehicle operations Management Project, including the rental GFM has eight components: 1) A mandatory scheme and fleet management; 2) insurance, internal rental programme under which country including self-insurance and third-party operations and Headquarters (HQ) can order insurance; and 3) the VTS. from a catalogue of standard vehicles; 2) A The evaluation used the following methods of centralized procurement service that facilitates data collection and analysis: document and economies of scale through direct bulk purchases literature reviews, visits to five country of light vehicles from Toyota and Nissan; 3) operations and two UNHCR HQ offices, review of © UNIVERSALIA II UNHCR GLOBAL FLEET MANAGEMENT EVALUATION two comparator organizations (ICRC and IFRC), and key informant interviews. Other benefits accrued through the GFM Scheme Data collection entailed field visits to five countries (Algeria, Chad, Colombia, Kenya, In addition to providing monetary benefits, GFM Lebanon) and to UNHCR HQ offices in Geneva and has contributed to improving and streamlining Budapest. Overall, 183 stakeholders were the ordering, management, and disposal of light consulted, including: GFM staff, UNHCR fleet vehicles. Self-insurance and standardization of managers, country programme and processes are also identified as important administration staff, representatives and deputy benefits accrued through the GFM Scheme. representatives, UNHCR drivers and NGO partners. The UNHCR vehicle self-insurance scheme provides low cost, comprehensive insurance coverage for damage and loss. It is a value added Findings for country operations, many of which only had access to local third-party liability insurance. There have been notable increases in the number of incidents reported, from 132 in 2014 to 463 in Costs and cost comparison of 2017. Additionally, the total amount of insurance the GFM scheme claim reimbursements increased by a hundredfold during that same timeframe, from To evaluate the gains from GFM, the evaluation USD 23,365.72 in 2014 to 2,301,850.20 in 2017. team compared the present situation to what it The number of claims closed without payment would be if GFM had not been implemented. also significantly decreased, from 64 percent in The main takeaways of the comparison of the 2014 to 37 percent in 2017. Overall, progress GFM scheme to buying locally are clear. GFM since 2014 suggests the GFM global insurance is benefits clearly outweigh its costs, considering working well and that continuous improvements procurement costs, revenues from disposal, are being made to ensure adequate accident insurance costs, and the effort of staff time reporting and efficient claims and involved. Savings from procurement and reimbursement processes. There remain a few insurance and revenues from disposal have led to areas for improvement. Notably, of the claims an overall GFM gain of USD 17,500,000. The closed without payment 73 percent were due to evaluation estimated that GFM procurement of lack of proper documentation. Gathering light vehicles saved UNHCR approximately USD documentation is especially difficult for country 8.8 million in 2017 and approximately USD 9.5 operations located in conflicted zones or million in 2018. secluded areas. While information on the revenues from disposal Another important benefit of the GFM is vehicle of vehicles before GFM is limited, the auction standardization which increases efficiency and process used by GFM brought in revenues of reduces costs related to management, training, approximately USD 6.3 million in 2017 alone. maintenance and repairs because vehicles are fitted with the same components and equipment. Regarding insurance costs, the cost of all-risk Overall, GFM offers 10 models (Toyota and insurance bought locally is higher than insurance Nissan) with 49 different specifications (e.g., left provided through GFM. The cost is estimated to or right driving, engine configuration). While be USD 4,635,626 for insurance bought locally, consulted stakeholders generally agreed that the compared to USD 2,178,500 for insurance types of vehicles offered by GFM meet most provided through GFM. This represents savings of operational needs of UNHCR staff and partners, USD 2,457,126. some models were not suited to conditions in all © UNIVERSALIA UNHCR GLOBAL FLEET MANAGEMENT EVALUATION III countries. Drivers and partners asked to be Centralized disposal has had two