The Dual Career and Staff Mobility Programme is an initiative led by the United Nations and the World Bank Group in response to an increasing concern by staff about relocation and expatriate spouse employment.

The programme broadly consists of two pillars: to help newly-arrived expatriate families to settle in to their new duty station, and to assist those expatriate spouses and partners who wish to work to obtain employment.

A key feature of the programme is this website, which publishes career and employment opportunities for expatriate spouses and partners and offers a wide range of country-specific information on such subjects such as accomodation, health, schools and getting around.

In addition, Local Expatriate Spouse Associations (LESA) are being established in UN and World Bank Group duty stations under the overall responsibility of their respective Resident Coordinators and UN Country Teams. These associations assist spouses and partners with their career concerns and provide on-site information and help to expatriate families moving into a new duty station. The work of the LESA is coordinated by the Global Expatriate Spouse Association (GESA) which is based in Geneva and managed by the Secretariat of the United Nations Chief Executives Board for Co-ordination (CEB) on behalf of the programme's members. The web site is also managed by the GESA.

The programme was established in 2003 as a joint effort by a working group of 6 UN agencies (UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNOPS, WFP and WHO) to strengthen the UN system's ability to recruit, re-assign and retain the best qualified individuals. UNAIDS and the World Bank subsequently joined the working group, the latter marking a widening of the programme to include organisations not in the UN Common System.

From 2005-2007, the programme supported the establishment of 37 LESAs, initiated the publication of the newsletter Two Work! and developed the UN Staff Mobility website. At the end of 2007, the High Level Committee for Management endorsed the move of the programme from the World Food Programme in Rome to the CEB Secretariat in Geneva. The aim of the move was to increase the number of UN organizations that participate in the programme, encourage harmonization of Spouse Employment policies across the UN system and to put staff mobility and its consequences high on the interagency agenda.

The programme officially started at the CEB Secretariat on June 1st 2008, with the appointment of the Programme Coordinator, soon followed by that of the Researcher/Writer. In the mean time, six new member organisations were welcomed: ILO, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNRWA, UNWTO and the UN Secretariat. The new Steering Committee has been set up, consisting of representation from all 14 member agencies and is taking on new challenges, such the expansion of the programme to include other (non) UN organizations and the true harmonization of spouse employment policies so as to better support and facilitate staff mobility and relocation.

• Moving To A New Country? - Practical information to help expatriate families with their transition needs.
• Fact Sheet - Information on the Dual Career and Staff Mobility Programme, last updated September 2008.

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