Business Operations are defined loosely as” all non-programmatic activities needed to deliver UN Programmes efficiently and effectively."  This in effect implies quite a range of operational processes, tasks and infrastructure development and maintenance, from policy to implementation, from personnel management to telecommunications infrastructure, from banking to security, from procurement to building maintenance. 

In order to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of UN operations in country and throughout the UN System, the practice of streamlining a lot of this operational work has become known as harmonization of Business Practises, which includes common services and common premises.

It is key to recall that without UN programmes there would be no need for business operations, and that without business operations we would be unable to implement programmes.  This symbiosis and the need for constant communication between these two areas of expertise cannot be overemphasized and it is key to the development of shared operational services and efficiently functioning programmes.

The overall objective of Common Services and Harmonized Business Practices is to:

• Ensure efficient and cost effective support to the delivery of the country based programme activities
• Facilitate cost savings and/or enhanced quality of operational support for UN Agencies
• Reduce transaction costs for governments, partners and sub-contractors
• Increase harmonization and coherence between the different UN entities and between the UN System and the external environment

In general harmonized business operations include the following areas:

• Common Procurement
• Common ICT infrastructure
• Human Resources
• Harmonised Approach to Cash Transfers (HACT)

For more guidance onthe Common Services and Harmonized Business Practices, please refer to the UNDG Toolkit.