Upon a recommendation by the United Nations Board of Auditors, the secretariat arranged for internal audit services with the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) in 2006, following which the latter conducted a detailed risk assessment of the main areas of the secretariat's operations. This report is a summary of the work undertaken by OIOS during the 12 months ending 30 September 2008. The full text of the report is contained in this document as an annex and reproduced as received, without formal editing