UNICC Joins UNJSPF as a Winner of UN Secretary-General Awards 2021

UNJSPF and UNICC collaboration on the Digital Certificate of Entitlement app

Every year, the UN Secretary-General recognizes the inspiring work of United Nations personnel who have gone above and beyond their duties, or have introduced new ideas with great potential. See the Winners of the 2021 UN Secretary-General Awards.

This year, he recognizes four worthy winners, including UNJSPF and UNICC in the Innovation and Sustainability category, for the Fund’s Digital Certificate of Entitlement (DCE) solution to replace paper-based pension verification processes. See news item from earlier in the year here.

The UN Joint Staff Pension Fund and the UN International Computing Centre won the Innovation and Sustainability category, for developing a Digital Certificate of Entitlement to replace the paper-based verification process.
António Guterres, UN Secretary-General

The UN Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), in partnership with UNICC, launched the Fund’s Digital Certificate of Entitlement (DCE) app in February 2021, which allows the Fund’s retirees and beneficiaries the option to complete the annual Certificate of Entitlement exercise by providing their annual proof of life in a biometric format. The DCE app is available for free download on Android devices and Apple devices. See the UNJSPF article.

We need to congratulate UNICC for its flexibility in navigating the challenges of implementing the application in the middle of the pandemic. The blockchain technology applied in this Digital Certificate of Entitlement brings about endless possibilities to automate other aspects of the pension distribution process and beyond.
Dino Cataldo Dell’Accio, CIO, UNJSPF

Innovation and sustainability

The Digital Certificate of Entitlement is a state-of-the-art mobile and web-based authentication solution that can verify the identity and location of retirees and beneficiaries, replacing a paper-based process.

It responds to worldwide COVID-19 disruption, is environmentally friendly, delivers organizational efficiencies, is user-friendly and secure and uses new biometric facial recognition, blockchain and global positioning technologies.