The indexes compare the US Dollar costs of a representative basket of goods and services between a duty station and New York City, the base of the UN Common System. These indexes are updated to reflect price changes over time at the duty station and New York, movements in the exchange rate of the local currency vis-à-vis the United States dollar and to adjust for expenditures made by the staff outside the duty station.

Detailed explanations of the methods used to compute the indexes may be found on the ICSC Homepage at: http://icsc.un.org/col-rpi.asp.