Workplans - Budget

Question 1

Govt IPs have their own detail budget costing codes as per their own financial account keeping/reporting. If we ask them the detail budget breakdowns as per our requirements, they consider it as additional work and takes a longer lead time to provide such information. It hinders our FACE process lead time. How to handle this? can we not accept the broad budget breakdowns provided by Gov IPs?

Answer 1

Governments can use their own template, as long as it has the necessary information UNFPA needs.

Question 2

“Detailed Budget - Is it mandatory to use the excel format, or can we use a ““different”” format as long as it has the required detail of expenses?
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Answer 2

For IPs, you can use a different format as long as it has as a minimum standard—contain the details specified in the IP template, including budget breakdown by nature of transactions

Question 3

“In doing budget revision for an IP workplan, is there a threshold to the budget that the IP should sign or not sign in the GPS workplan before it is uploaded in GPS
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Answer 3

I’d refer you to the workplan policy page 21 to see when a workplan revision is required. Please remember you do not need to re-sign the workplan for every revision, you can do an exchange of letters and generate a new agreed snapshot in GPS (and upload the exchange of letters and the revised detailed budget breakdown in GPS).

Question 4

On a detailed budget breakdown development we are being challenged by the IP as the UN is not harmonized at all and we are always compared with other UN agencies who are doing otherwise and this creates a big challenge for UNFPA to bring the discussion on the table

Answer 4

We understand there are differences and we are working closely with the other agencies to try to harmonize our various practices and processes around IP management.

Question 5

“Regarding the Detailed Budget template… is it mandatory to breakdown by sub activity or is it enough to do it at the activity level?
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Answer 5

It depends on the activity and the sub-activity. The purpose of the detailed budget breakdown is to have a logically derived budget to show what expenses it will take to complete the activity. If this level of detail can be shown based on the activity alone, it is not mandatory to do the breakdown at the sub-activity level

Question 6

“For the detailed budget of IP, do we need to include nature of transaction/account code?
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Answer 6

You only need to include the nature of transaction for the IP