The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF) is a defined benefit plan, that is, a pre-determined retirement plan based on a number of factors including earnings history, tenure and age, rather than dependent on investment returns. This provides UNJSPF beneficiaries with peace of mind and security after serving the United Nations or the other 23 member organizations of the Fund. In addition, the Fund entered into agreements with 24 entities for the transfer of pension rights.

International civil servants do not necessarily benefit from social security schemes in their home countries. The UNJSPF often provides the only source of income for them and their families once they retire. Participating in the Fund is automatic and mandatory for staff members of a UNJSPF member organization holding contracts for at least six months.

More specifically, as stipulated in article 21(a) of the UNJSPF Regulations, for staff members of a UNJSPF member organization who are not expressly excluded from participation by the terms of their appointment, participation commences after their appointment for six months or more, or upon completing six months of continuous service without an interruption of more than 30 days; whichever occurs first.

Participation under these circumstances is automatic: no action is required to enroll from the staff member. Member organizations inform the Fund of their staff’s contractual status and family composition. The Fund then enrolls the staff member as a participant by assigning a unique ID and number (UID), which is subsequently relayed to them through their member organization.

The nine-digit UID assigned to each participant who becomes a new member in the Fund will be for life and will not change, even throughout different periods of participation and retirement, if applicable. Members of the Fund should always reference this UID number when communicating with the Fund to ensure proper tracking of all correspondence and documents. 

The UID is also required to register for the UNJSPF Member Self-Service (MSS) portal.

Every year, the Pension Fund prepares an Annual Pension Statement for each participant, that contains personal and financial data as reported to the Fund by respective employing organizations; the statement includes data starting from the participant’s beginning of contributory service date until the end of the most recent prior year. The latest statement was published in May 2024 and is available to participants only on their MSS account.

It is important to ensure that personal information is always updated in the Fund’s records. In the case of participants, these changes must be reported through respective HR offices. Retirees and beneficiaries may inform the Fund directly and submit the related documentation.

All participants are covered against the risk of death and disability from the beginning of their participation. Upon separation from service, they become entitled to a benefit based on the length of contributory service; to become entitled to a form of retirement benefit, participants must have vested their pension rights, which means they must have contributed to the Fund for at least five years. Those who separate with less than five years of contributory service will be entitled to a withdrawal settlement.

The kind of retirement benefit an eligible participant can elect depends on their age at the date of separation and whether they reached their normal retirement age (NRA) or at least their early retirement age. Retirement benefits are calculated based on a formula that takes into account the participant’s rate of accumulation and their final average pensionable remuneration (FAR) at the end of their service. The rate of accumulation is the rate at which retirement benefits accumulate for each year and month of contributory service; the maximum accumulation rate attainable is 70% of the participant’s FAR. The FAR is the average of the highest 36 months of pensionable remuneration rates during the last 60 months of the participant’s contributory service.

Upon joining or re-joining the Fund, the participant may be eligible to avail themselves of one or more contributory service purchase options: validation, restoration and/or the transfer of pension rights. Where available, these options would allow a participant to add contributory service to their current participation, thus increasing their total contributory service and, potentially, their future entitlement from the Fund. Strict conditions and application deadlines apply.

The Fund’s benefits include those for entitled survivors of a participant who died in service, or of a beneficiary entitled to a disability or retirement benefit. Potentially entitled survivors could be the spouse(s), ex-spouse(s), and/or child(ren) of the deceased, or, if none of these are entitled, a secondary dependent, if applicable. It is important that the Fund be notified as soon as possible of the passing of a UNJSPF member and receive a death certificate, to prevent overpayments and enable the Fund to determine eligibility to survivor’s benefits from the Fund.

A lifelong surviving spouse’s benefit is payable if the deceased was entitled to a retirement, early retirement, deferred retirement or disability benefit at the date of his/her death, provided the surviving spouse was married to the retiree/beneficiary at the date of separation from service and remained married to him/her until the date of death; or, if the retiree/beneficiary had married after separation and purchased an annuity for their new spouse from the Fund. Such benefit is also payable to the surviving spouse of a participant who died in service, provided the surviving spouse was married to the participant at the date of death in service. A divorced surviving spouse’s benefit is also payable under certain conditions.

A surviving child’s benefit is payable by the Fund for each child of a participant who died in service, or of a beneficiary entitled to a retirement, early retirement or disability benefit, until the end of the month during which the entitled child reaches age 21. If the Fund determines that a child is incapacitated for substantial gainful employment and awarded a disability benefit, then the entitlement to the surviving child’s benefit will continue for as long as the child remains incapacitated.

Several survivor’s benefits can be payable at the same time, i.e., any of the above survivor’s benefits may be paid in parallel. If none of the above survivor’s benefits is payable, the Fund will check if a secondary dependent survived the participant, or is beneficiary of a disability, retirement, early retirement, or deferred retirement benefit, and is entitled to a surviving secondary dependent’s benefit.

UNJSPF periodic benefits, like disability, retirement, and survivor’s benefits, are adjusted for cost-of-living movements over time. The conditions of adjustment are provided in the Fund’s Regulations and Rules under the Pension Adjustment System (PAS), which includes the so-called two-track system.

The two-track system is an option made available by the Fund so that beneficiaries living in high cost-of-living countries can receive a periodic benefit that can adapt to the local cost-of-living changes. It has little to do with the choice of currency in which periodic benefits are received and is more dependent on the differences in the cost-of-living and the evolution of the Consumer Price Index in between the beneficiary’s chosen country of residence and the United States. 

To find out whether the two-track system may be advantageous in your case, you may wish to run an estimate at any time after you separate from service inside MSS.

More detailed information is available through the Fund’s eLearning modules and by attending or listening to the recording of the Fund’s virtual Pension Townhall on different topics.