 |
|
|
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees |
As spring approaches in the region, some 150 000 IDPs from Chechnya are experiencing a second winter in the neighbouring republic Ingushetia.
About 50 000 people are accommodated in tent camps, shipping containers, railway wagons, and abandoned buildings. Many of these sites needed upgrading to provide a dry, warm, and safe living environment over the winter, some are being vacated and the IDPs moved to better conditions in tent camps. For the benefit of some 20 000 IDPs, UNHCR upgraded and winterised 68 settlements and provided shelter materials, stoves and fuel to another 171 settlements to ensure that the most vulnerable persons were able to survive the winter.
UNHCR has provided two new tent camps in Ingushetia, accommodating more than 9 000 IDPs. These camps have benefited IDPs formerly living under squalid conditions in railway wagons and some of the worst spontaneous settlements.
Host Ingush families accommodate the overwhelming majority of Chechen IDPs, some 100 000 persons. The Shelter Compensation Programme is implemented jointly by the UNHCR and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation on the territory of Ingushetia in order to support these families. The project is nearing completion, and more than 15 000 host families have received compensation payment equivalent to almost 100US $ for increased expenditures for public utilities during the past winter.
The population increase caused by the arrival of IDPs in Ingushetia placed enormous strains on the water supply. In this connection UNHCR is implementing a project aimed at improving the water and sanitation infrastructure and services in Ingushetia and sanitation facilities for IDPs who remain in tent camps and spontaneous settlements. For this purpose UNHCR has provided water trucks, garbage trucks, sewage trucks, and 65 water bladders each with 1500-litre capacity. Also, 40 large water bladders, 6 water trucks and 4 sewage trucks are to be provided for use in support of the population in Grozny, where water is reportedly scarce and often polluted.
Since the fall of 1999, the UNHCR has sent a total of 140 aid convoys to the Northern Caucasus: 98 have gone to Ingushetia, 25 to Chechnya, and the rest to neighbouring areas affected by the crisis. The convoy operation cost nearly US $ 10,000,000.
|
On 14 February, the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation Oleg Mironov met with the leaders of refugees’ communities in Moscow and in the Moscow Region at the UNHCR’s Office. The meeting was held on the joint initiative of Oleg Mironov and the UNHCR Regional Office in the Russian Federation. Representatives of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Ethiopia participated in the meeting. High ranking officials from the Ministry of Federal Affairs, National and Migration Policy of the Russian Federation, and the Moscow and Moscow Region governments also took part in the meeting. Some twenty journalists from information agencies and TV companies covered the meeting.
The Deputy Regional Representative J. Gyorke chaired the meeting. In his opening remarks, he stressed that a clear distinction should be made between illegal migrants and refugees. He drew attention to the discriminatory approach to non-CIS asylum seekers in conducting refugee status determination procedure.
Representatives
of asylum-seekers raised the question of access to refugees status determination,
lack of official documents, and police harassment, as well as education, medical
care, housing, the problem of Afghan orphans, the Refugee Law article on temporary
asylum.
The need to create a temporary accommodation centre in the Moscow area was noted by the Head of the Ministry’s territorial organ for the Moscow Region, Victor Lopyrev.
The Ombudsman expressed his willingness to cooperate with UNHCR on the issues discussed during the meeting. He admitted that the problem of asylum-seekers from non-CIS countries should be seriously looked into. Oleg Mironov noted that his Office is open to any kind of cooperation in accordance with the mandate, including drawing up legal acts and examining appeals against any unlawful decision or action by the Russian authorities, if other administrative or judicial tools did not work.
|
On Friday, 23 March 2001, at Moscow school #729, a joint project
of UNHCR, the Moscow Committee of Education, and 
"Ethnosphera"
was presented. In addition to all the participants in the project, a representative
of the Moscow branch of the Ministry of Federal Affairs, National and Migration
Policy of the Russian Federation took part in the event. The project envisages
the creation of one elementary language class for 25 Afghan pupils, asylum seekers
and refugees at school #729. Children will undergo language training under the
special programme "Russian as a Foreign Language". After completing the programme,
pupils will gain a sufficient level of the Russian language to enable them to
continue their education in a regular Russian school. This is the first state
school to officially accept children of refugees and asylum seekers from non-CIS
countries. The first 24 Afghan pupils between the age of 6 and 10 began attending
school #729 from 19 January this year.
|
 |
International Labor Organisation |
Created with the ILO’s assistance in Cheboksary, the capital
of the Chuvash Republic, Centre for Development of Self-
Employment
and Enterprise Initiatives successfully operates in the field of professional
training and retraining staff in order to transform large state owned enterprises
into smaller ones.
The Centre was organized in May, 1999. The ILO’s support was intentionally limited to developing a concept base and giving advice. If this new concept proves its practical value, the Russian partners will receive a new tool for diminishing the negative social consequences of enterprise re-structuring during the transition period.
During its relatively short existence, the Centre has become fully operational and has achieved financial independence. All the main objectives of this pilot project have been successfully achieved.
About 60 jobless people have already been fully or partially employed with the Centre’s assistance. More than 100 people – mostly young people, women with children and pensioners - have started private paid activities or are going to do so. Together with local businessmen, the Centre assisted the Electronics and Mechanics Plant located in Cheboksary to improve the use of available equipment and vacant premises. As a result of cooperation, the plant started to export a new product. The Centre also assisted the plant in creating new lines of traditional products and finding additional marketing opportunities.
These results have been achieved thanks to the fact, that the Centre acts as an agent that searches for and finds new opportunities, by uniting the interests and potential of large industrial enterprises, on the one hand, and of small businesses and unemployed – on the other. Therefore it seems justified that the plant managers are satisfied with the Centre’s initiatives and assistance.
Stanislav Lyapunov, General Director of the Electronics and Mechanics Plant noted that the Centre helped to compensate for some negative characteristics typical of large enterprises, such as the absence of flexibility and an innovative approach. The Centre is helping the plant to establish cooperation with new enterprises, market production, find workplaces for free workers and hire additional staff for temporary assistance whenever needed.
Another important aspect of the Centre’s activities is support of business initiatives. The Centre is ready to render assistance in promoting and realizing almost any idea. Its consultants receive up to 20 visitors every day. Many ideas are carried out by the Centre itself, which removes the necessity of registering new juridical entities. Thus, the Centre considerably reduces the expenses and risks which inevitably arise while a new enterprise is being created, and practical activity, which is usually carried out stage by stage, receives a powerful impulse. Besides, close cooperation with the Electronics and Mechanics Plant, with its diversified equipment, opens up broad opportunities for manufacturing and marketing new products.
The Centre’s computer database contains the names of hundreds of qualified experts and workers who are looking for temporary or partial employment. Many of them are women with children, invalids, pensioners, and students.
Since the beginning of its activities in 1999, the Centre has achieved a great deal. It enjoys a good reputation in the region. Now there is every reason to believe that the Centre’s basic concept - to be an active agent in promoting creative projects and establishing cooperation and business ties between large enterprises, business associations, local employment services, and the self-employed population - has proved its efficiency and thus will be of certain interest to other regions of the Russian Federation.
Project Manager
Olga Mjavanadze
tel.: (095) 933-08-29,
fax: (095) 933-08-20
