United Nations: Renovation Still Scheduled for Completion in 2013, but Risk to Its Schedule and Cost Remain

In 2009, we reported that the United Nations (UN) began construction associated with its Capital Master Plan (CMP) to renovate its headquarters complex in New York City. We found that the CMP integrated master schedule and a subschedule met, to some extent, most of the best practices for scheduling contained in "GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Developing and Managing Capital Program Costs." In particular, among other issues, CMP officials had not performed a schedule risk analysis to quantify the potential impact on meeting the project's completion date. As the schedule affects project costs--costs generally increase the longer a project takes--assessing risks to the schedule and quantifying their impact is important to ensuring that the project is completed within the limits of the funds available. Moreover, having schedules that align with best practices can help ensure that they are as useful and informative as possible. Therefore, we recommended that the Secretary of State and the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations work with other member states to direct the CMP office to implement our best practices for scheduling, to the extent practical. In commenting on our draft report, the Department of State (State) agreed that the CMP office should strive to implement scheduling best practices that will help them improve their management of the project by providing better information on the impact and risk of delays. In 2013, we confirmed that State officials conveyed the intent of our recommendation, to the extent practical, through appropriate diplomatic channels to the cognizant UN officials affecting the organization's control of the CMP. Informed by our 2009 report, the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions issued a report in October 2009 on the CMP. The report emphasized the need for intensive coordination and consultation between the CMP office and all other key stakeholders throughout the renovation project in order to avoid schedule delays and resulting cost increases. The report recommended that the General Assembly--the UN's main deliberative and policymaking organization--request the Secretary-General to provide progress reports with more comprehensive and specific information on project delays, including their cost implications as well as actions to manage delays and cost risks. Subsequently, the General Assembly adopted a resolution that incorporated the recommendations of the Advisory Committee. As a result, UN member states should be more aware of the importance of controlling the schedule and related costs of the headquarters renovation project, which should lead to heightened oversight of the CMP's project management efforts.