Message by the Under-Secretary-General
Mr. Shaaban M. Shaaban

It gives me great pleasure to introduce the Language Outreach Portal of the United Nations.

The United Nations is one of the world’s largest employers of language professionals, together with the European Institutions. It employs hundreds of language professionals working in the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM) through its offices in New York, Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi. Those language professionals comprise interpreters, translators, editors, verbatim reporters, terminologists, reference assistants, copy preparers and proofreaders. Additionally, language professionals are also hired by the United Nations Regional Commissions in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Beirut and Santiago.

The ability of United Nations to attract the best in the field - given the stringent professional expertise required - has recently become a real challenge due to demographic changes and the impact of globalization, especially for certain language combinations. In an effort to address this problem, DGACM has initiated a language outreach programme having academia as its focus.

The Portal is an integral component of the Language Outreach to Universities initiative. The Portal is designed to guide and assist people in identifying language career opportunities at the United Nations, in choosing appropriate academic training and/or preparing for United Nations Competitive Language Examinations. A section on capacity building provides limited access to specialized language study and training programmes for prospective candidates of Competitive Language Examinations, through our academic partners who have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with DGACM.

The United Nations recruitment policy for language staff is geography and gender blind. The selection criteria for the examinations are based solely on the skills and experience of the applicants, not their nationality, and candidates are recruited solely on the basis of their performance in the examinations. Once selected through the competitive examination processes, in the area of languages, the candidates are hired into the professional category and thus rules on geographical balance do not apply. Successful applicants come from varied professions, including journalism, law, and economics, and have the opportunity to build a strong career with the United Nations.

I hope that through this portal, and as it continues to evolve, we will be able to build upon existing partnerships, initiate new ones, and welcome amidst us a cadre of core language professionals and a strengthened Department for General Assembly Affairs and Conference Management in service of the Organization and the Member States.