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National Humanitarian Coordination
no. 1 |
NATIONAL HUMANITARIAN COORDINATION
RECORD
of the first coordinative meeting held on 11th of July
2001 in Skopje
Present
- S. Smileva and F. Ljatifi - Cabinet of the President
of the Republic of Macedonia
- B. Cadinoski and Risto Georgiev - Ministry of Labour
and Social Policy
- D. Kanovski and A. Mulas - UNHCR
- V. Dulatahi, R. Smit and K. Karen - US Embassy
- R. Sholarton, G. Hasimi, I. Aliu and D. Skoric -
UNWFP
- H. Lester Ykolas and A.Manenti-WHO
- M. Edmont - UNICEF
- A. Biondi - ECHO
- Sue Mclntyre - USAID
- B. Istrefi - Swiss Embassy
- Katerina and V. Lazari from CRIC
- D. Antic and H. Chris - Mercy Corps
- F. Pagani - IRC
- F. Stam, L. Abot and S. Filipe - ICRC
- I. Narasanov and Lj. Petkov - Macedonian Red Cross
- S. Paunovska from IFRC/MCK
- A. Prusi - El hilal
- Z. Abdiu - Klasje na doverba
- M. Rahmani - Mesecina
- A. Krzalovski and E. Nuredinoska - MCIC
AGENDA
- Relations with other coordinative mechanisms
(UNHCR, Coordinative Body at the Macedonian Government);
- Establishing coordinative body (membership, working
scope, responsibilities, working mechanism);
- Activity assignment (reporting and coordinating
of humanitarian aid; contact list; collection, preparation and distribution
of information).
The first meeting of the National Humanitarian Coordination
(NHC), established on the President Trajkovski's initiative and directed
by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, was opened by Mr. Boge Cadinoski,
a Head of Unit at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy. He emphasised
that the NHC's objective is to provide an effective humanitarian activities'
coordination mechanism and an appropriate informing among the organizations
involved in the humanitarian aid, thus avoiding losses and duplication
of aid.
The President Cabinet's representative, Mrs. Flora Ljatifi,
emphasized the necessity of such coordination of all relevant entities
after the escalation of the crisis in the past two months in Macedonia.
The increased number of internally displaced persons and refugees is a
fact that should lead towards unity and cooperation among all involved
organizations and institutions. According to Ljatifi, the idea of the
first coordinative meeting of the NHC is to define the basic tasks, working
scope, membership, working mechanism and coordination with other existing
bodies (at the present, the coordinative meetings of UNHCR and the Government
Coordination Body for Crisis Management).
The Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Mr.
Risto Georgiev considers that by the NHC, the competences between the
involved organizations in the humanitarian aid will be defined. This would
result in avoiding duplications when distributing aid and thus the needs
of larger number of internally displaced persons (IDP) can be covered,
as well as avoiding other undesirable consequences and anger among IDPs.
The initiative for establishing NHC was greeted by the
representatives of ICRC, UNHCR, WHO and the Macedonian Red Cross as well.
Ad.1. Aleksandar Krzalovski,
MCIC, said that NHC has no intention to replace the existing coordinative
mechanisms, but to complement them, thus providing appropriate covering
of the needs of mutual informing in order to plan and cover the target
groups adequately.
The representatives of ICRC, UNHCR, WHO and WFP emphasised
their contribution and activity towards appeasement of the crisis, and
their cooperation with the Ministry of labour and Social Policy. They
emphasised the need of a greater sectorial cooperation and flow of information
with the Governmental institutions.
There was also an opinion (WFP and UNICEF) that it is
more necessary not to establish another coordinative mechanism, but to
improve the participation of the Governmental representatives on the already
existing meetings (UNHCR and sectorial) instead. According to them the
Government should appoint representatives for each sector (food, health,
education, water supply and sanitation, etc.) who would be active participants
on the regular meetings.
Instead of additional coordination, there are expectations (WFP) that
NHC should have other (higher) role: to raise and discuss relevant questions
for the humanitarian response to the crisis, for which the Government
should discuss over; to bring operational decisions supported by the Government.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Policy representative
said that the intention of this body is to help achieve more efficient
coordination, not to make political decisions.
Ad.2. There were no comments
on the proposed duties of the NHC.
The WFP representative suggested to reduce the number
of members in the Coordinative Body of the NHC. He also said that Council
of International Nongovernmental Organizations has been established that
can appoint a representative to participate on the future meetings. Similar
suggestion was made for the domestic NGOs, to establish a similar body
and appoint their representative. By doing this, the NHC will be significantly
reduced, while the efficiency increased.
The MCIC representative emphasised that this kind of
experience (local NGO coordination) has already been present during the
Kosovo crisis in 1999 and that MCIC can facilitate this process.
Ad.3. This issue was postponed
for the next meeting, after establishing the NHC and its members.
Follow up activities
- The Ministry of Labour and Social Policy should
make additional consultations for the structure of the Coordinative
Body of the NHC and to arrange the next meeting;
- The Ministry of Labour and Social Policy should
make consultations with the other competent
Ministries for appointing Governmental representatives on the sectorial
coordinative meetings;
- In completing the duties of the NHC the lessons
from the Kosovo crisis should be taken into account (according to the
document from the Seminary held in Ohrid, Autumn 1999, organized by
the Ministry of Defence);
- International nongovernmental organizations
on the next meeting of the Council of International Non Government Organizations
should appoint their representative in the NHC;
- Domestic Nongovernmental Organizations should
organize local NGO coordination and appoint their representative in
NHC.
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