Many UN Agencies in Ethiopia already benefit from sharing premises at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) complex in Addis Ababa. Due to space constraints not all UN agencies can be housed on the site but most of the Agencies not inside the ECA are located in close proximity. This situation will not change until completion of a major office complex reconstruction programme in 2012 by which time it is intended that all UN Agencies will be located on a single site.

Common Services can play an important role in improving the efficiency of the UN system and in reducing overhead and transaction costs. UN Agencies already share a number of services eg. travel agency, catering and health but there is still a large amount of separate provision and duplication in other areas.   The UNCT commits itself to exploring the progressive introduction of more Common services where these are cost effective.

In 2009 the UNCT agreed to take forward consideration of improved and extended Common Services in the areas of travel, procurement, human resources, health and ICT.