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Sectoral Co-ordination Meeting
on Shelter In attendance were: Introductory remarks: The Chair reminded the agencies which have ready funds or are operational that an executive Consolidation Meeting on Working Areas aimed at reaching an agreement on areas of activity was to follow immediately after the shelter coordination meeting. The Chair introduced the agenda that was the following:
1.1 C.R.I.M The Chair reported on the establishment of the C.R.I.M. (Committee for Reconstruction and Infrastructure of Macedonia) that has the prime objective to coordinate housing repair activities in ways of assuring the use of same standards and following of Macedonian law by all the actors through approving shelter repair activities that are to be undertaken in the country. The C.R.I.M. meetings will be held weekly, on Wednesdays at 15:00, and will be attended by major donors, IMG and representatives of the implementing agencies. C.R.I.M. held its first meeting on Wednesday, 03 October, at which it discussed the need for public announcement of the National Strategy for Housing Damage Repair. Starting from the next week, a regular slot will be provided in the Shelter Coordination Meeting agenda for progress reports by the C.R.I.M.. A table on housing damage, prepared by the Ministry of Transport and Communications, showing the number of damaged houses by populated places, damage category and damage value was distributed at the meeting together with a general map showing the broad geographic distribution of damaged houses. 1.2 IMG database and PIMS IMG introduced the PIMS (Project Information Monitoring System) database once more, explaining it had the objective to assist with the coordination of rehabilitation activities on a regional and national level by recording housing damage repair/rehabilitation projects that are ongoing or that have ready or funding in pipeline. The database is up and running, and, if NGO inputs are coming, IMG will provide regular weekly progress updates for the shelter meetings. UNHCR implementing partners will be using this system and will contribute their PIMS forms. IMG reported that in a meeting with EU earlier that day, it was agreed an IMG web site to be established within 7-10 days on which PIMS and the IMG maps concerning housing damage assessment at the 11 municipalities will be put together with the details on every village and house assessed in those areas. Regarding the completing of the IMG engagement in the hosing damage assessment, it was noted that IMG will not be able to assess all the targeted houses. 2,049 houses at villages that could still not be accessed will remain uncovered, but that would not affect the confidentiality of the results of the assessment. 1.3 Legal framework UNHCR, with the asistance of its implementing partners, has developed the draft bipartite agreement for damage categories 1-3 in consistence with the Macedonian law and UNHCR experience from Kosovo, and submitted it to Mr. Trombev from the Ministry of Transport and Communications for review and approval. UNHCR has inserted provision in the draft text for inclusion of 2 annexes (( a) description of works and b) list of materials)) which the Chair strongly suggested should be used by all the implementing agencies. There is also a ‘Certificate of Completion’, to be issued upon the completion of works, prior to which point all materials distributed remain the porperty of the implementing agency. Once the draft documents are approved, they will be distributed in English and in Macedonian. The implementation procedure set by the agreement was introduced once more, at which it was explained that the implementing agency could proceed with the works if the list of beneficiaries submitted to the local municipality office is not disputed within 5 days. 1.4 Access framework The Chair developed with the Crisis Management Centre (CMC) a list of information required by them from agencies, with respect to movement through checkpoints. Mr Currion and UNHCR followed up on the efforts that are being made to simplify the procedure of obtaining access permits for agencies that are implementing repair projects and delivering construction materials to the crisis regions. During the last week, in the discussions with representatives of the Crisis Management Centre (CMC) at the Ministry of Defence it was concluded that there was no problem with the overall access, but with the consistence of the requests and the way how these were being submitted so far. Mr Currion and the Chair briefed that in order to overcome these inconsistencies 3 pro-forma documents had been developed and agreed upon with CMC for informal use in submission of access requests in the following way:
Agencies, even those that have no difficulties in obtaining access permissions, had been invited to start using this system. Note was made that CMC ID cards issued to NGO staff will still be obligatory and that agencies have to submit the forms directly, not through donors. In MCIC’s experience, agencies could expect ½ – 2 hours delays at police/army checkpoints. 2) IDPs in collective centres (CCs) and in host families (HF) Note was made that the only agency currently carrying out repair works at CCs was IRC, that was implementing repair of the 3 CCs in Kumanovo. Concerning HF, European Perspective reported it was moving on with the technical assessment of the HF dwellings which it hoped would be useful for identifying shelter needs. 3) Schools and ambulanta UNHCR briefed on the services offered to UNICEF and WHO in support of their mandate on facilitating the return that consisted in making assessment teams available for technical assessments of the damage on school and ambulanta objects. That far, in organisation by IRC, Shelter Now International (SNI), with the assistance of the Seismic Institute teams, had made technical assessment and produced bills of quantity for total of 4 school and 1 ambulanta premises at:
SNI added that the assessment produced data on all the buildings within the school premises as well as data on the number of pupils attending. SNI announced bringing more details on the assessment could be presented on the next meeting. UNICEF reported that so far 12 schools have been committed for repair by CRS and one each by Solidarites and UNHCR. UNICEF is looking to commit other agencies for repair of the 14 schools next in line on the list of priorities, at which so far interest has been expressed by ECHO and World Vision for repair of 7 and 3 schools respectively. Once the repair of these priority schools is committed and implementation started, UNICEF will look to revise the priority list and include 20 – 25 school building found in damage category 1.
Mr Biondi of ECHO reiterated that ECHO intended to be involved in rehabilitation of schools and ambulanta premises in a way of complementing rehabilitation/reconstruction programmes of other agencies. He observed that agencies had been far behind the schedule, especially in Kumanovo region, where 50-60% of the schools started functioning with the support by the local community that carried out the cleaning and minor repairs. Mr Biondi stressed that ECHO disposed with both funds and necessary information from the rapid damage assessment and was ready to initiate activities immediately. The rapid damage assessment showed that school and ambulanta premises existed in 64 villages, where only 25 premises were damaged, 11 of which fell in priority for repair. ECHO had funds sufficient to cover the repair of 80% of these premises and has committed to support the repair of the 11 objects identified as priority in cooperation with UNICEF and WHO. Mr. Biondi also briefed that UNICEF/WHO priority list was being communicated to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education for approval and that repair could start within days. 4) Quick Impact Projects The Chair introduced Ms Theresa Obradovich who will be monitoring QIPs civil projects for UNHCR. Ms Obradovich shortly introduced the QIPs once more, stressing that the programme was aimed to support small works supported by local communities that would upgrade infrastructure or other facilities in a short period of time (before the end of the year) and would not exceed 30,000 US$. Ms Obradovich presented QIPS introduction and application forms and explained these will be distributed in Macedonian and Albanian language too. It was further explained that NGOs that consider applying should submit a letter of support by the municipality. It was also stressed that no electronic submissions will be considered and that interested agencies should submit their proposals in hard copy. Ms Obradovich reported that receipt of project proposals will be through OXFAM who has been contracted by UNHCR to umbrella the project. Selection will be made by a committee consisting of UNHCR, donor (ECHO, UK Government) and representatives of the agencies. Ms Obradovich invited all interested to be conscious of the time constrains due to the winter coming. In that regard, UNHCR will provide a bulletin board of needs to assist in speedy preparation of proposals. 5) Any Other Business For additional information please contact Dr. Tom Corsellis, at corselli@unchr.ch Erratum UNHCR has incorrectly described the NGO CAD as Christian Aid Direct. CAD is the initialisation for Children’s Aid Direct. UNHCR extends its apologies for this mistake. Ron Langford rlangford@cad.org.mk is the contact person. SPesic/OCHA/Skopje
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