Summary Report of the Tripartite Meeting
On
Resettlement

First Day - 18 March 2003

The Chair of the WG, Mr Bill Lundy, opened the first day of the Tripartite meeting and welcomed the new Deputy DIP, Mr Mbaidjol. The Agenda for the meeting was adopted.

Integration Initiative

The Representative from Sweden, Mr Erik Stenstrom, made a brief presentation on the historical process that led to the ICRIRR conference (Norrkoping, April 2001). He recalled the objectives and the achievements of the Conference and provided some background on the Reference Group, which was created during the last meeting of ICRIRR Executive Committee to provide continuity to the ICRIRR’s work. Mr Micheal Casasola (UNHCR Ottawa) continued by providing an update on the integration initiative (a comprehensive overview was distributed to the WG members). In particular, he emphasised the role of the Reference Group in the context of the initiative, and noted that the question of the leadership for the Reference Group was raised several times with no concrete results. After the departure of Ms DeWinter, the overall responsibility for the Integration Initiative was handed over to UNHCR Ottawa, which agreed to act as a focal point. The Victorian Foundation (AUL) took on responsibility to develop the Handbook on Integration, which was released at the EXCOM Meeting in June 2002 and is now being translated in French, Spanish and Portuguese. Mr Casasola took the opportunity to express deep appreciation for this work and encouraged all to use creative means to make the Handbook as available and accessible as possible.

Ms Liz McWeeny presented the outline of a proposal that the CCR developed in the context of the Integration Initiative. She recalled that, during the ATC in 2002, all parties acknowledged that there was a great need of transferring skills and tools to countries that are implementing, or are considering to establish, new resettlement programmes. The CCR had, at that time, made a guarded offer to concretise a project, which was made conditional upon participation and support by states and HCR. Ms McWeeny explained that the CCR would be willing to act as a focal/coordinating point to facilitate linkages between tripartite partners, so as to make ICRIRR’s energy and interest current. In concrete terms, the proposal, which is modest both in scope and costs, would consist of testing a mechanism to identify the current needs and to make links with the parties who could offer something to match those needs. As part of the mechanism, the CCR would, at first, make an inventory of what NGOs and States can offer; second, the CCR would make contacts with offering parties and connect them with the parties in need. Ms McWeeny emphasised that the operational costs would be very low and would need to be funded by all participating partners. The proposal, which was presented in its preliminary form, would be for a 12-month period. The CCR would be ready to facilitate this process and, if agreeable to the WG, to report to the ATC with recommendations for next steps. Ms McWeeny clarified that, as a first step, CCR would need a contact person from States and other partners, with whom to communicate and exchange infornation. Also, she added that it would be helpful to start making a list of all relevant issues or best practices that partners think would be important to offer at this point. In conclusion, Ms McWeeny noted that the Agenda for Protection had requested to expand the capacity for resettlement, and that, indeed, the CCR proposal would be part of that broader effort.

The Chair opened the floor for discussion on the CCR proposal. The majority of States (Canada, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway) commended the CCR for this initiative and expressed their readiness to provide in-kind support to it, but not financial resources. On behalf of the US NGOs, Mr Hetfield (HIAS) noted that the main concern of the NGOs at the moment is to fill out refugee slots in the US and, as a result, integration issues are only a second priority. While acknowledging the efforts of CCR and the accomplishments of the ICRIRR, the Representative of the US, Mr Birdsall, also noted that the focus of the US Government, at the moment, is to identify groups of refugees for resettlement. A brief discussion followed on the opportunity of using the existing fora (Reference Group, WG) to continue exchanging information instead of creating a new structure and engaging fresh financial resources. It was felt, however, that the WG Chair could not take the responsibility for these issues. In addition, no State expressed interest to Chair the Reference Group and to co-ordinate efforts in this direction.

Emerging resettlement countries

Discussions under this agenda item centred around three specific issues: i) identifying the needs of emerging countries; ii) looking at one model of “twinning” that has been used to deliver capacity building in the EU context iii) continue discussion on how best to structure the support to emerging resettlement programmes.

The Representative from Brazil, Mr Vieira, on behalf of Ms Nara Moreira da Silva from the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, presented an overview of the status of Brazilian resettlement programme and shared the concerns of his Government regarding their first resettlement experience. He noted that Brazil succeeded in resettling 5 families composed of 23 persons. Out of this number, however, three have decided to return to their country of origin (Afghanistan), and another family is considering doing the same. Mr Vieira identified a number of elements that may have contributed to the current situation: i. Absence of genuine willingness of refugees to be resettled in the country; ii. Refugees not having a realistic picture of the socio-economic situation of the country in which they were being resettled: as a result, over-expectations on their part, especially regarding prospects for economic/financial gain; iii. Face-to-face interviews were not conducted with the refugees prior to their arrival; iv. Lack of co-ordination between country of resettlement and country of first asylum, especially in the transmission of information to refugees. The Representative from Brazil expressed the sincere willingness of the Brazilian authorities to continue working in co-operation with other States to reinforce their current strategy to resettle and integrate refugees in their country.

The Representative from the UK provided an overview of the resettlement programme, which provides for some 500 refugees per year and will be made operational the 1st of April 2003. She noted that the UK will take refugees from Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, and that the Ministry is very keen to expand the programme once the structures and systems are well in place. She noted that, in regard to providing accommodation to resettled refugees, the UK will contract specific agencies to manage refugees’ integration services, and that the NGOs will have a strong role to play in this regard. Ms Pamela Hussein, from the British Red Cross, expressed satisfaction that the UK Government, while initiating and formalising a quota resettlement programme, will continue to run the mandate quota refugees for linked cases and the 10-or-more resettlement programme.

The Representative of the EC, Mr Verheij, outlined the basic features of the programme PHARE and explained how the concept of “twinning” is being used by the EU as an approach for capacity building. He noted that the PHARE programme was developed for the purpose of transferring the European “aquis” to prospective EU member States and to reinforce institution building. Mr. Verveij described in detail the procedures required for the presentation and approval of proposals and emphasised that the beneficiary country plays an important role in terms of formulating the proposal and specifying the objectives they want to achieve. The main feature of the project is the secondment of an expert who will work with the local administration of the beneficiary country for a period ranging from 1 to 2 years, mainly in the area of Justice and Home affairs. Shorter secondment periods are also possible (few weeks) under the “Light-Twinning” project schemes. According to Mr, this lighter scheme would be more a suitable model for enhancing the emerging resettlement programmes, for it include a range of other services including training services. For this to be successful, it requires a precise description of the needs, including the type of experts and advice required, timeframe, budget, as well as working methodology and criteria. There may be some limited possibilities to fund these proposals under specific EU financial instruments as long as there is a link to the European Community as such.

A discussion followed on the practical application of this model to resettlement programmes (how to approach systematically capacity building for em countries) and on the potential availability of financial resources. The majority of States expressed support to the idea of low-cost twinning projects and made themselves available to become twinning partners to emerging countries, (this would include the appointment of focal points, participation in selection missions and seminars, sharing of documentation, study-visits to resettlement sites, sharing of expertise). It was agreed that twinning may best take place in a co-operative and multilateral fashion (“mix and match approach”) rather than through a bilateral, “lead-partner” model. Ultimately, States acknowledged that the gap-analysis is an essential stage for the purpose of identifying an appropriate twinning project, and that it may be worthwhile to explore the feasibility of the CCR project in this regard provided there is a focal point to push this forward. While ready to provide in-kind support, the large majority of participants made it clear that no financial resources could be made available to fund either the CCR project or other twinning initiatives. Denmark and Canada will look into the possibility of identifying some financial resources and will revert.

Conclusion and follow-up:

The following conclusions were reached:

(i) the CCR project will be pursued and expanded to include the overseas selection aspect of resettlement as a part of gap-identification and analysis.

(ii) all parties are committed to providing in-kind support to twinning projects and to identifying a focal point for the purpose of the CCR proposal;

(iii) The Governments of Canada and Denmark will be considering the possibility of funding the CCR proposal and/or other twinning initiatives;

(iv) other Governments are encouraged to pursue the possibility of making small contributions to address the amount required by the CCR proposal;

(v) the following possibilities will be explored, to fund capacity-building visits of emerging countries to traditional resettlement countries:

- proposal by a minimum of two EU States for funding under EC financial instruments;

- US “visitor programme” (UNHCR and Government concerned to make proposal)

- Grants and contribution funding to NGOs for hosting visits

UNHCR-ICMC Deployment scheme

Ms Borisensko provided a brief update of the deployment scheme project. She highlighted a number of activities and accomplishments on the basis of the list of priority that was developed during the ATC. In addition, she outlined the benefits of the deployment schemes on UNHCR operations in the field as well as the plans and goals for the remainder of 2003. A comprehensive update report was distributed to the audience. The following issues were emphasised during the discussion: (i) the need to adequately measure the impact of the deployment scheme, both in qualitative and quantitative terms;

(ii)the interest of deploying NGOs not to have their staff deployed for too long to fill gaps in UNHCR posting; (iii) the need to have adequate training in place; the opportunity to look at deployees’ final reports to identify areas in need of improvement.

ATC Agenda

The tripartite WG went on discussing the ATC Agenda for the purpose of identifying substantive subjects for discussions. The ATC will take place on the 18th and 19th of June. Agreement was reached on the topics for discussions and the respective presentations. These will need to be distributed beforehand, so as to allow the ATC to be devoted entirely to discussion, based on the presentations.

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Second Day, 19 March

Morning

Update of the Resettlement Initiative

Ms Eva Demant, Chief of the Resettlement Section, presented an update of the Resettlement Initiative which was undertaken in September 2002 as part of the HC‘s goals of strengthening resettlement both as a protection tool and a durable solution. As a basis for the work accomplished by UNHCR so far, Ms Demant mentioned the HC’s Memorandum on “Management of Protection Activities” issued in March 02, and the DIP’s Director Memorandum of July 02, introducing the standards set forth in the updated Resettlement Handbook. She underscored the collaborative nature of the initiative, which involved the substantial participation of UNHCR Regional Bureaux and resulted in the establishment of Resettlement Working Group at Headquarters level. The immediate result of this collaborative effort was the joint Memorandum issued by the DIP Director and the Bureaux Directors in late November 02, which contained instructions to the field to implement a number of activities. Ms Demant mentioned among the most practical accomplishments the establishment of an infrastructure to enable HQs to monitor, facilitate and enhance resettlement in the field as well as to strengthen its planning and co-ordination role. This included the development of a number of tools, such as: charts and matrix (eg. The self assessment checklist) to ensure that resettlement is ingrained in the protection work of all Fos; the inventory of resettlement staff in the field; the request upon the field to develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs); the Appendix 8 to the Country Operations Planning (COP); the Global Needs Assessment Report (which was made available during this meeting under the form of Resettlement Projected Needs for 2003); new systems for reporting on statistics; and finally, the establishment of Resettlement Hubs in Nairobi and Accra.

Ms Phyllis Coven, Senior Consultant with the Resettlement Section, continued the presentation by highlighting the way forward and underscoring the four issues that UNHCR intends to push through the following weeks and months. These issues are: i) The harmonisation of resettlement criteria and the operationalisation of the criteria “ Lack of Local Integration Prospects - including the way this criteria associates with “group resettlement” and related procedures; ii) Infrastructure for case identification and enhancement of processing. This issue includes NGOs referral and registration through Profile; iii) Planning on resettlement. This includes finding new approaches to do resettlement planning, e.g. pledging conference for resettlement needs; iv) Strategies for the diversification of resettlement.

The following issues were raised during the discussion: the opportunity for HCR to consider initiating pilots for channelling submissions through the Regional Hubs; the need to strengthen transparency in resettlement activities as well as co-ordination with States; the use of NGOs for identifying refugees in need of resettlement and UNHCR’s current efforts to shape protocols in this regard. A number of countries/NGOs expressed support for UNHCR’s intention of developing a methodology on group referrals and of defining the criteria “Lack of Local Integration Prospects”. With regard to UNHCR objective of “harmonising” resettlement criteria, it was suggested that an alternative wording be used, i.e. “broadening” the resettlement criteria. Some support was also expressed for the idea of the “pledging conference” as a planning tool. The Chief of the Resettlement Section agreed on the need for UNHCR to do more budget analysis of operational costs related to resettlement. Finally, upon request from the NGOs, the opportunity will be explored to include a 5-minute presentation by experts, which would bring an external perspective into the ATC discussion on regional updates.