Safety and Security 

• Access to Palais des Nations: The operating hours of the access points (gates) to the Palais des Nations will continue to follow the reduced times of 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. as was implemented last year. This schedule remains in effect on all working days; the campus will continue to be closed on weekends and UN holidays.
• The purchase of all materials and equipment that are not considered critical to maintenance of normal operations is suspended.
• All external training suspended, unless considered essential for continuity of critical services. 

Building operations 

• Buildings will continue to be heated to 20.5°C and in the warmer seasons cooled to 26.0°C.
• Outdoor lighting will continue to be limited to that necessary for security and safety.
• Equipment purchases and replacements continue to be suspended, with the exception of operationally critical requirements.
• Maintenance operations are limited to regular working hours, except for that urgently necessary for operations.
• The summer season of language classes is suspended. 
   

Meetings

• Time slots of standard three-hour duration within official working hours (from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.) for meetings with conference services will be strictly applied (in line with General Assembly resolution 56/242, annex).
• All regular budget organs and bodies with the total annual duration of their sessions of 10 meetings or more are to reduce the number of meetings by at least 10% below the budgetary entitlement and adjust their programmes of work accordingly.
• Mandated meetings have absolute priority. Nevertheless, servicing capacity is significantly restrained and may not suffice to support all mandated activities during peak periods as currently planned.
• Meeting services to regular budget organs and bodies with the utilization rate (entitlement minus cancelled meetings and time lost due to late start and early ending) of 80% or below in 2024 will be capped at the 2024 level. Any intergovernmental decision to implement a new mandate within existing budgetary resources will be subject to the availability of adequate cash resources, capacity and the limitations set out above.
• Confirmation or cancellation of meetings (without interpretation) must be communicated to the Meetings Management Section, Division of Conference Management (DCM) by 3 p.m. the Tuesday of the week prior to the scheduled start date, in line with the established practice. To ensure efficient use of limited resources, late additions may not be accommodated. Late cancellations would result in idling of conference servicing capacity or/and facilities.
• The approved Geneva Calendar of Conferences and Meetings in 2025 has been carefully fine-tuned. Requests for changes to the dates of the calendar sessions will not be considered. This will also apply to intersessional activities that emanate from resolutions. These will need to be scheduled definitively well in advance.

Interpretation Services

• Interpretation services are only available for calendar meetings held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Lunchtime service for non-calendar meetings may be provided on a cost-recovery basis subject to the availability of capacity and sufficient advance notice.
• The confirmation notice for meetings with interpretation services is now three weeks (formerly one week) to allow for proper planning and efficient management of limited resources.
• Meetings in the “as required” category can only be serviced with sufficient advance notice to DCM. Interpretation and other services will be provided strictly on an “if available” basis.
• All “if available” meetings, including the meetings of regional groups or other major groupings of member states, will be considered for interpretation and other services only with sufficient advance notice to the Meetings Management Section/DCM, by 3 p.m. the Tuesday of the week prior to the date of the meeting.

Side events and special events

• Side events and special events can take place only during regular working hours, unless Organizers cover the extra costs incurred for events taking place outside of working hours.
• Lunchtime events in conference rooms can be accommodated only on a fully self-service basis and in automatic sound mode. UNOG staff will not be in a position to provide technical or other assistance. No layout or technical changes to the conference rooms are allowed.
• Events that are not part of the intergovernmental process, such as art exhibitions and special events openings, will continue to be assessed on a case-by-case basis and may require full cost-recovery, or be limited in number and duration.

Documentation

• The timeline to process draft resolutions may be extended beyond the standard 48 hours up to 72-96 hours. Likewise, 24 hours for submissions on the penultimate day may need to be reconsidered.
• All regular budget entities will need to limit the length of their internally authored reports by 10% against the established maximum wordcount.
• A maximum of 90 percent of the 2024 volume of submissions per regular budget entity may be accepted for processing in 2025. Entities are invited to determine their respective priorities and appropriate methods to stay within the above limit.
• The verbatim records for the Conference on Disarmament will continue to be processed but will incur longer delays.
• Summary records will be processed strictly for mandated meetings within the limits of the existing capacity. Delays in issuance should be expected. Entities are encouraged to prioritize requests for summary records, keeping capacity constraints and potential long delays in mind.
• Timely and simultaneous issuance of parliamentary documentation in the mandated languages, in compliance with the six-week rule (or 4-week rule for certain bodies), will be negatively impacted. Notwithstanding, every effort will be made to have documents issued before the respective meeting.
• Agreed word counts will continue to be strictly enforced.
• Publications will be processed if funding and capacity are available. In the negative, submissions of publications will be put on hold.

Meetings coverage, press, broadcast and webcast services (under the budget of the Department of Global Communications)

• There will be limited or no written coverage of some meetings, particularly the main sessions of the Human Rights Council as well as the intersessional meetings. There will also be some limitations to the full English and French press coverage of the meetings of the 23 sessions of the 9 human rights treaty body committees serviced throughout the year. With only four press officers handling often overlapping sessions, and the impossibility to recruit temporary assistance, the ability of the UN Information Service to cover these meetings is severely stretched.
• All equipment purchases or replacements is suspended, except for operationally critical requirements.
• UNTV’s broadcast operations will function with reduced core capacity. Broadcast coverage of the Human Rights Council meetings will be extremely limited.
• Broadcast and webcast coverage of press conferences at the Palais des Nations may be limited.
• UN Web TV livestreaming of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies’ public meetings will continue using existing staff resources.
• UN Web TV livestreaming of the Human Rights Council’s regular sessions will also continue, with limited resources (there will be no cue points, or “chapters” in the 3-hour meeting videos).
• UN Web TV will not be able to service the new expanded webcast mandate stemming from the Human Rights Council decision 56/115 unless provided with the resources approved by the General Assembly in December 2024 (posts, equipment, platform fees). This means that webcast of the Council’s meetings outside of the regular sessions will have to be funded with extrabudgetary resources (including the two remaining sessions of the Universal Periodic Review).
• The webcast mandate for the Open-ended Working Group on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space may not be fully implemented.
• Should the UN Information Service be unable to hire on staff positions that become vacant through retirement or staff mobility, the current level of services (print, webcast and broadcast) will be forced to be further reduced.
• Broadcast and webcast coverage of other events at the Palais des Nations will be carried out exclusively on a full cost recovery basis.

• Services to Member States and the media on the provision of multimedia materials and support will be reduced. In particular, no photo service will be provided, including for the Human Rights Council, except on a full cost recovery basis.