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

  1. Relations with other coordinative mechanisms (UNHCR, Coordinative Body at the Macedonian Government);
  2. Establishing coordinative body (membership, working scope, responsibilities, working mechanism);
  3. 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

  1. 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;
  2. The Ministry of Labour and Social Policy should make consultations with the other competent Ministries for appointing Governmental representatives on the sectorial coordinative meetings;
  3. 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);
  4. International nongovernmental organizations on the next meeting of the Council of International Non Government Organizations should appoint their representative in the NHC;
  5. Domestic Nongovernmental Organizations should organize local NGO coordination and appoint their representative in NHC.
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