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Host Families Assistance Co-ordination
Meeting
The Chairperson reported on speculation presented in the newspapers the day before that the Macedonian Government was ready to offer cash assistance to host families to the amount of 250/350 DEM per family. He pointed out that, having in mind the national level of welfare assistance, this kind of speculation may raise false expectations among the people and therefore advised on the importance of having a clearly defined strategy on announcing the availability of funds. SDR representative also raised concern about the release of the above unconfirmed information in the local media. He advised that the Swiss Embassy Humanitarian Aid Unit was still waiting for their Government's expert to arrive the following Monday and assess the SDR cash assistance proposal, after which decision on approval of funding was to be taken. The ECHO representative informed that they were working in co-operation with IFRC on the distribution of hygiene parcels to host families. IFRC informed that they had 15 000 hygienic parcels in stock ready to be delivered as soon as the following week, once statistics on IDPs, host families and refugees from MRC was obtained. The IFRC representative shared the information that MRC branches have been approached by IDPs staying with host families in Prilep, Veles and Bitola with a request to be accommodated in collective centres, which indicated the apparent host families fatigue. On the other hand, there was a lack of accommodation at collective centres, the only one being available in Dojran. Yet, the IDPs were reluctant to leave from the place close to their original home and go to Dojran because they would not be able to carry out their day to day activities. The Chairperson emphasised the importance of finding out incentives for the IDPs to move from collective centres to private accommodation, as well as the need for securing both financial and in-kind support in order to fight host family fatigue. He pointed out that according to certain estimates made under the supposition of the best case scenario, by January 2001 there would still be 10.000-20.000 IDPs staying at host families in the country. UNICEF briefed on the UNICEF led vulnerability assessment of host families' needs and IDPs that was already taking place. The training of the assessors was completed and the start date was Thursday 23 August 2001. This survey is being conducted in close collaboration with state institutions and 11 national and international NGOs. A co-ordinator whose job will be to assess the data gathered was also assigned. This assessment is comprehensive and will include 6,000 people from all over the country. The representative also briefed on the content of the assessment sheets. The collected data is expected to be analysed by the end of September. The American Refugee Committee (ARC) and CARE representatives asked whether there was still time to co-ordinate the NGO assessments with the UNICEF assessment.
Mr. Agostino Mulas, UNHCR
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