Humanitarian Assistance
Protecting Refugee Women and Girls Remains a Significant Challenge Gao ID: GAO-03-663 May 23, 2003Women and children refugees, who comprise 80 percent of the estimated 12 million refugees worldwide, are among the world's most vulnerable populations. They are subject to gender-based violence, including physical harm, rape, and unequal access to humanitarian assistance. GAO was asked to (1) assess efforts by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to protect refugees, especially with regard to women and girls; (2) determine what steps U.N. and international organizations have taken to prevent sexual exploitation of refugee women by humanitarian workers; and (3) describe U.S. government efforts to support adequate protection for vulnerable populations.
UNHCR and international organizations have developed guidelines, best practices, and other measures to improve protection of refugee women and girls. However, weaknesses in its staffing process and training limit the effectiveness of these measures. UNHCR lacks a formal strategic workforce plan that links the organization's objectives, resources, and staffing; its staff assignment and rotation policies have resulted in extended vacancies at key protection posts; and it provides little practical training for most UNHCR and implementing partner staff on protection concepts and techniques. UNHCR could also make better use of partnering arrangements with nongovernmental and international organizations to boost its protection capacity. In response to allegations in 2001 of sexual abuse and exploitation of women and girl refugees by relief workers and peacekeepers, the U.N. and other international organizations introduced policies and procedures to address the problem, such as codes of conduct and mechanisms to report and act on new allegations of abuse of power. While these efforts have raised awareness among workers in refugee settings, international organizations face continuing sexual exploitation of women by relief workers, and the issue remains a real and significant problem. The U.S. government, through the Department of State, supports the protection of refugees and other vulnerable populations primarily through its funding to international organizations. It is also a strong advocate at the United Nations, within international organizations, and at the country level to increase protection efforts.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-03-663, Humanitarian Assistance: Protecting Refugee Women and Girls Remains a Significant Challenge
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Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Foreign Relations,
U.S. Senate:
United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
May 2003:
Humanitarian Assistance:
Protecting Refugee Women and Girls Remains a Significant Challenge:
GAO-03-663:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-03-663, a report to the Ranking Minority Member,
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Why GAO Did This Study:
Women and children refugees, who comprise 80 percent of the estimated
12 million refugees worldwide, are among the world‘s most vulnerable
populations. They are subject to gender-based violence, including
physical harm, rape, and unequal access to humanitarian assistance.
GAO was asked to (1) assess efforts by the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) to protect refugees, especially with regard to women
and girls; (2) determine what steps U.N. and international
organizations have taken to prevent sexual exploitation of refugee
women by humanitarian workers; and (3) describe U.S. government
efforts to support adequate protection for vulnerable populations.
What GAO Found:
UNHCR and international organizations have developed guidelines, best
practices, and other measures to improve protection of refugee women
and girls. However, weaknesses in its staffing process and training
limit the effectiveness of these measures. UNHCR lacks a formal
strategic workforce plan that links the organization‘s objectives,
resources, and staffing; its staff assignment and rotation policies
have resulted in extended vacancies at key protection posts; and it
provides little practical training for most UNHCR and implementing
partner staff on protection concepts and techniques. UNHCR could also
make better use of partnering arrangements with nongovernmental and
international organizations to boost its protection capacity.
In response to allegations in 2001 of sexual abuse and exploitation of
women and girl refugees by relief workers and peacekeepers, the U.N.
and other international organizations introduced policies and
procedures to address the problem, such as codes of conduct and
mechanisms to report and act on new allegations of abuse of power.
While these efforts have raised awareness among workers in refugee
settings, international organizations face continuing sexual
exploitation of women by relief workers, and the issue remains a real
and significant problem.
The U.S. government, through the Department of State, supports the
protection of refugees and other vulnerable populations primarily
through its funding to international organizations. It is also a
strong advocate at the United Nations, within international
organizations, and at the country level to increase protection
efforts.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that the Secretary of State work to reform UNHCR‘s
staffing system, expand protection training, encourage protection
partnering, and maintain focus on combating sexual exploitation of
women and girls. State agreed with our recommendations. UNHCR
disagreed with fundamentally reforming its staffing system, stating
that better instruments for assigning staff and managing vacancies are
sufficient remedies. We maintain that UNHCR needs a strategic
workforce plan and better staff assignment and rotation policies to
ensure that certain vacant duty stations are filled.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-663.
To view the full product, including the scope
and methodology, click on the link above.
For more information, contact David B. Gootnick, (202) 512-3149,
gootnickd@gao.gov.
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Recent Action Raises Awareness, but Refugee Women and Girls Continue to
Face Violence:
Despite Remedial Actions, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Power Still
a Problem:
U.S. Government Funds International Organizations' Protection
Activities:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Catalogue of Refugee Protection Reports:
Bibliography40:
Appendix III: Comments from Department of State:
Appendix IV: Comments from UNHCR:
Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: UNHCR's Approved Regular and Supplementary Budgets, Actual
Funds Received, and Percentage Difference, 1998-2002:
Table 2: Protection Officer Vacancies by Region:
Table 3: State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and
Migration Contributions to UNHCR, United Nations Children's Fund, and
the International Committee of the Red Cross, 1998-2002:
Figures:
Figure 1: Burundian Refugee Women:
Figure 2: Registration of New Refugee Arrivals in Tanzania:
Figure 3: Distribution of Protection Officer Posts and Assisted
Populations in High-Risk Countries:
Figure 4: Refugee "Temporary Shelters" in Thailand:
Figure 5: A Karen Women's Committee Income-Generating Activity, Mae La,
Thailand, 2003:
United States General Accounting Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
May 23, 2003:
The Honorable Joseph Biden
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Foreign Relations
United States Senate:
Dear Senator Biden:
Women and children refugees, who comprise 80 percent of the estimated
12 million refugees worldwide, are among the world's most vulnerable
populations. Violence against women and girls has historically been,
and continues to be, prevalent among refugees, including those fleeing
current conflicts in Burma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and
Liberia. Gender-based violenceæharm perpetuated against a person
because of gender-based power inequitiesæis aimed primarily at women
and girls. In refugee settings, this violence can take the form of
intimidation, physical harm, sexual abuse including rape, and unequal
access to humanitarian assistance. Although no systematic data exist
about the magnitude of the problem, reports by numerous international
organizations over the past two decades demonstrate that sexual abuse
of refugee women and girls is pervasive and present in almost all
refugee settings. Reports out of West Africa in 2001 cited sexual abuse
and exploitation of refugee women and girls by relief workers from
international and nongovernmental organizations and by peacekeepers--
the very people charged with protecting refugees. The U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the lead international
organization charged with providing protection and assistance to
refugees and other vulnerable populations.
Because of your concerns about the protection of this vulnerable
population and the allegations of relief workers' and peacekeepers'
abuses of power, you asked us to (1) assess efforts by UNHCR and its
implementing partners to protect refugee women and girls from gender-
based violence; (2) determine what steps the United Nations and
international organizations have taken to prevent relief workers' and
peacekeepers' abuse of women and girls; and (3) describe the steps the
U.S. government takes to protect refugees and other vulnerable persons.
To assess the efforts taken to protect refugee women and girls, we
conducted fieldwork in refugee camps and surrounding areas in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Thailand.
Collectively, these four nations have more than 1 million refugees,
face protracted refugee crises in which refugees and other vulnerable
populations are under imminent threat of physical and sexual violence,
and were recommended as representative case study countries by State
and think tank officials. We assessed the adequacy of international
mechanisms to identify and provide protection to refugees from the time
of their initial flight to their arrival and settlement in refugee
camps to repatriation home. In addition to extensive interviews with
refugee women and girls, refugee leaders, and camp management, we
supplemented our field-level information with meetings with U.S.
government, United Nations, Red Cross Movement, peacekeeping, and
nongovernmental organization officials at the headquarter, regional,
and country levels. In our work with UNHCR, we met with officials from
19 different offices and examined extensive staffing data--including
vacancies, duty station categories, and worldwide distribution of
staff. To assess U.N. and international organizations' response to
reports of abuse by staff and peacekeepers, we reviewed a series of
remedial action plans recently issued by U.N. and other international
organizations and assessed how these plans were being implemented in
refugee camps. We also obtained independent perspectives from
recognized experts within the human rights, think tank, and refugee
advocacy communities on U.N. and U.S. efforts to provide refugee
protection. (For a more complete description of our scope and
methodology, see app. I.):
Results in Brief:
Over the last decade, UNHCR and its implementing partners have boosted
their efforts to protect refugee women and girls from sexual abuse and
violence by creating policies, best practice guidelines, and programs
to protect this population. At the field level, gender based violence
initiatives are targeting vulnerable persons--such as female-headed
households--and providing them with secure shelter and access to
services. Despite these gains, shortfalls in UNHCR's resources and its
weak management in staffing and training limit the effectiveness of
measures taken. Regarding resources, failure of donors to fulfill
funding pledges forced UNHCR to make budget cuts of $73 million--nearly
10 percent of its regular budget--in 2002. These cuts led to a
reduction in protection programs aimed at women and girls. Regarding
staffing issues, UNHCR does not have a strategic workforce plan--a plan
that links the organization's objectives, resources, and staffing--to
maximize the physical protection of refugees. Consequently, the number
of protection staff in some high-risk countries is insufficient and
impedes protection efforts. Furthermore, UNHCR's staff assignments and
rotations are voluntary and have resulted in extended:
vacancies at key protection posts. In Tanzania, for example, UNHCR has
1 junior protection officer responsible for the physical protection
needs of 155,000 refugees in 5 camps. Regarding training, we found that
most UNHCR staff and staff within nongovernmental organizations that
serve as their implementing partners in camps have not received
practical training on protection concepts and techniques, such as how
to identify and address sexual violence cases. Finally, we found that
UNHCR's implementing partners and other international organizations
have protection capabilities that provide significant opportunities for
partnering arrangements to fill gaps in refugee protection.
In response to reports at the end of 2001 alleging sexual abuse and
exploitation of women and girl refugees by relief workers and
peacekeepers, the United Nations conducted an in-depth investigation
into the allegations, and international organizations adopted codes of
conduct and instituted training programs for their employees. During
our fieldwork in numerous refugee camps, we found there was high
awareness of the ethical and professional conduct expected of relief
workers and peacekeepers, and there were established mechanisms to
report and act upon any new allegations of abuse of power. Despite
these efforts, international organizations still face continuing sexual
exploitation of refugees by relief workers. Although the in-depth
investigation could not verify specific charges of abuse, it found
other cases and concluded that sexual exploitation by relief workers
was a real problem. During our fieldwork, we observed officials from
UNHCR and nongovernmental organizations investigating new cases of
sexual exploitation and abuse by workers in Tanzania and Sierra Leone.
Based upon extensive interviews with relief workers and refugee women,
our observations, and review of 12 years of reports, refugee women and
girls remain extremely vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse of
power due to (1) the high level of poverty among refugees, (2) limited
monitoring of camp situations by international relief workers, and (3)
cultural attitudes on the part of some relief workers and refugee-led
camp management. According to relief and human rights experts,
continued high-level management focus on preventing exploitation is
necessary so attention does not wane before it becomes part of
organizations' institutional culture.
The U.S. government's role in protecting refugees and other vulnerable
populations has been primarily through its funding of international
organizations. In 2002, the Department of State provided UNHCR and the
International Committee of the Red Cross--the two key international
organizations mandated to provide protection--with $265 million and
$124 million, respectively. Furthermore, the Department of State in
2002 funded a number of small grants for projects targeted to address
specific protection problems in countries. During our fieldwork, we
observed several of these protection projects--including some covering
sexual and gender-based violence prevention--that addressed gaps in
protection in Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), through its Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance and Office of Transition Initiatives, indirectly
contributes to refugee protection efforts. Finally, in addition to
financial support, the U.S. government plays an active role advocating
for the protection of refugees and vulnerable populations at the United
Nations, within international organizations, and at the country level.
This report makes recommendations that the Secretary of State work with
U.N. member states to address the inadequacies in the UNHCR staffing
system, expand protection training programs, encourage the development
of protection partnering arrangements, and maintain international
organizations' focus on combating sexual exploitation of refugee women
and girls.
In comments on a draft of this report, the Department of State said we
accurately reflect the reality of current efforts to provide protection
to refugee women and girls, noting that shortfalls in funding,
prioritization, and an ineffective staff management system hamper
UNHCR's protection efforts. UNHCR disagreed with our recommendation to
fundamentally reform its staffing system, stating that improvements to
instruments for assigning staff and managing vacancies, as well as more
predictable donor support, would be sufficient to address these
problems. The problems in UNHCR's staffing system have been long
documented and improvements aimed at selected aspects of the system
have not been effective. In our view, therefore, creation of a
strategic workforce plan and the development of a staff assignment and
rotation policy are necessary to address the protection needs of
refugees in high-risk and difficult duty locations. A more detailed
discussion of UNHCR's comments and our response is included at the end
of this report.
Background:
UNHCR is the lead agency in a network of international organizations
active in the protection and assistance of refugees and other
populations that are vulnerable in war and conflict settings. Other
major participants include the Red Cross Movement, the World Food
Program, and the United Nations Children's Fund, as well as
nongovernmental organizations such as the International Rescue
Committee and Save the Children. Established in 1950 to help resettle
European refugees in the aftermath of World War II, UNHCR is guided by
the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of
Refugees, both of which detail refugees' rights.[Footnote 1] UNHCR's
primary purpose as mandated by the United Nations is to provide
international protection for refugees by ensuring that their basic
human rights are respected. Further, UNHCR is to ensure that
individuals seeking asylum are given access to refugee status
determination procedures, are not refused entry at borders, and are
protected from forced return to a situation of danger. UNHCR's
policies, strategic objectives, and budget are set by its Executive
Committee, which meets annually to set the organization's priorities
and direction. (Fig. 1 depicts Burundian refugee women who told us of
their protection concerns in the Kasulu refugee camp in western
Tanzania.):
Figure 1: Burundian Refugee Women:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Changing Nature of Refugee Protection:
Factors inherent in armed conflict situations have changed the context
in which UNHCR and other relief organizations provide assistance and
protection to refugees and other vulnerable populations. In these types
of situations, the nature of refugee and displacement flows has changed
from persons fleeing organized conflict between states to an
environment of civil war in which armed state and rebel groups
purposely target civilian populations. The danger of operating in
conflict zones and the personal security risks to relief workers are
now major limitations to involvement in protection matters. For
example, from 1997 through 2001, 106 relief workers were killed in the
line of duty in Afghanistan, Angola, Rwanda, and Sudan. Even upon
arrival at a refugee or displacement camp, women and girls remain
vulnerable to violence from the local community, combatants who use the
camp as a rest and relaxation base, and other refugees. In addition,
some governments, such as Burma, block international organizations'
access to their vulnerable populations, thus hampering protection
activities. (See app. II for a listing of U.N. reports that cite sexual
violence against women.):
In response to the changing nature of the refugee context, humanitarian
organizations in 1996 reexamined the legal, practical, and policy
issues relevant to protection. Policy documents that emerged from this
review defined protection as actions aimed at obtaining full respect
for the rights of individuals by (1) preventing abuse; (2) restoring
adequate living conditions subsequent to a pattern of abuse; and (3)
fostering a social, cultural, institutional, and legal environment
conducive to respect for the rights of the individual.[Footnote 2] For
the purposes of this report, we focus on the physical dimensions of
protecting refugees, especially women and girls.
Recent Action Raises Awareness, but Refugee Women and Girls Continue to
Face Violence:
Over the last few years, the international community has boosted
protection of women and girl refugees from sexual abuse and violence
through international conventions, new standards and guidelines, and
increased programs on sexual and gender-based violence. However, UNHCR
has faced heavy budget cuts because of shortfalls in contributions from
international donors, and these cuts have directly impacted funding for
gender-based protection programs. In addition, UNHCR lacks a strategic
workforce plan linking its mission to its staffing system, which has
led to insufficient protection staff in some high-risk countries.
Furthermore, most UNHCR staff and those of their implementing partners
have not been trained in protection concepts and techniques. We also
found that UNHCR has opportunities to partner with other international
organizations that it could use more effectively to increase protection
of refugees.
:
UNHCR Has Taken Action to Improve Protection but Results Are Mixed:
Over the last decade, UNHCR and its implementing partners have advanced
the protection needs of refugee women and girls through a number of
mechanisms, including the development of UNHCR Policy on Refugee Women
(1990)[Footnote 3] and Sexual Violence Against Refugees: Guidelines on
Prevention and Response (1995).[Footnote 4] In addition, during our
fieldwork in Sierra Leone and Tanzania, we observed UNHCR protection
activities that identified vulnerable persons upon their initial
arrival in their country of asylum--such as female-headed households
and unaccompanied minors--provided them with secure shelter, and
assigned them social service staff for continued assistance and
monitoring. (Fig. 2 depicts a group of new refugee arrivals in Tanzania
at a border reception center being registered by UNHCR staff.):
Figure 2: Registration of New Refugee Arrivals in Tanzania:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Throughout 2001, UNHCR sponsored a dialogue with refugee women that
focused on their unique protection vulnerabilities and concerns. As a
result, in 2002 the High Commissioner established five commitments to
improve protection of and assistance to refugee women and establish a
link among gender equality, the advancement of women, and the
protection of refugees. Based on our fieldwork and discussions with
UNHCR and relief officials, we found that UNHCR has had mixed results
in its efforts to implement the commitments and has not established
mechanisms for their monitoring.
High Commissioner's Commitments to Refugee Women:
The High Commissioner's five commitments to refugee women cover the
following areas:
* Sexual and gender-based violence programs. UNHCR committed to develop
comprehensive country-level strategies to address sexual and gender-
based violence. The sexual and gender-based violence programs UNHCR has
set up in recent years have increased awareness in both men and women.
In our fieldwork, we observed sexual and gender-based violence programs
in various camps. In Sierra Leone and Thailand, refugee women were
attending gender awareness workshops and were active in monitoring
their camps for incidents of sexual violence and assisting victims. In
Tanzania, women participated in a firewood collection project designed
to protect women and girls when they are outside of camps collecting
firewood and very vulnerable to sexual assault. We also observed
prevention and response strategies in place. In Tanzania, Sierra Leone,
and Thailand, for example, refugee women told us that the camp gender-
based violence centers and programs raised their awareness of the
problem, informed them of their rights, and provided a practical means
to get help.
:
* Food distribution. In response to women's difficulties in obtaining
their rations when distribution is controlled by male-dominated camp
committees or made directly to male heads of households without women's
participation, UNHCR pledged to ensure that refugee women participate
directly and indirectly in the management and distribution of food and
nonfood items. At the sites we visited, we observed that women were
generally represented in food distribution programs. In Tanzania, at
least 50 percent of the food distribution was handled by women,
although participation levels remain under target in Sierra Leone and
Thailand.
* Camp management. To ensure that women's concerns are heard and acted
upon, the High Commissioner committed that 50 percent of refugee camp
management representatives would be women. Our fieldwork showed that
women's involvement in camp leadership positions varied, partly due to
cultural barriers in traditionally patriarchal societies. In Sierra
Leone and Tanzania, camp officials and refugee women told us that women
were very active, representing nearly 50 percent of the camp leadership
positions. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Thailand,
however, we learned that women are finding it more difficult to
overcome cultural barriers to their participation in camp committees.
* Registration of women. UNHCR committed to individually register all
refugee women and provide them with relevant documentation to ensure
their security, freedom of movement, and access to essential services
in order to alleviate their dependence on men. During our fieldwork, we
found that UNHCR is generally not individually registering women. Based
upon our observations in Sierra Leone and Tanzania and on UNHCR's own
reports, UNHCR is continuing its practice of designating males as head
of households.
* Sanitary material. The lack of sanitary materials has negative
health, social, economic, and psychological implications for women. As
a result, the High Commissioner committed to making the provision of
sanitary materials standard practice in all UNHCR assistance programs.
The organization is finding this commitment difficult to fulfill, due
to a lack of funds and commitment to the issue by some staff and
implementing partners. A 2000-2001 UNHCR survey found that the
provision of sanitary materials was inconsistent in terms of quantity,
quality, method, and frequency of distribution. In May 2002, a State
Department team also noted that the distribution of sanitary supplies
covers only 40 percent of the relevant population in central Africa. In
Sierra Leone and Tanzania, we learned that in some camps, a lack of
funds allowed for the procurement and distribution of sanitary
materials only to school-age girls.
Budget Shortfalls Inhibit Protection Efforts:
UNHCR's protection efforts are constrained by recurring budgetary
shortfalls. UNHCR's Executive Committee, comprised of 61 member states,
approves and supervises UNHCR's annual work plan and approves its
budget. The approved budget is based on pledges of support from the
executive committee members themselves and other donor governments.
However, in recent years donor governments have failed to meet their
funding commitments.[Footnote 5] In 2002, UNHCR had to cut $73 million
from its regular budget--nearly 10 percentæbecause of unfulfilled
donor
contributions. Since 1998 UNHCR has had to operate with an average 11
percent shortfall in its regular budget. (Table 1 shows UNHCR's regular
and supplementary budgets and actual funds available.):
Table 1: UNHCR's Approved Regular and Supplementary Budgets, Actual
Funds Received, and Percentage Difference, 1998-2002:
Dollars in millions.
1998; Regular budget: 460; Funds available: 384; Percentage difference:
-17%; Supplementary budget[A]: 609; Funds available: 662; Percentage
difference: +9%.
1999[B]; Regular budget: 437; Funds available: 385; Percentage
difference: -12; Supplementary budget[A]: 815; Funds available: 782;
Percentage difference: -4.
2000; Regular budget: 854; Funds available: 780; Percentage difference:
-9; Supplementary budget[A]: 102; Funds available: 77; Percentage
difference: -25.
2001; Regular budget: 791; Funds available: 730; Percentage difference:
-8; Supplementary budget[A]: 108; Funds available: 146; Percentage
difference: +36.
2002; Regular budget: 802; Funds available: 729; Percentage difference:
-9; Supplementary budget[A]: 228; Funds available: 218; Percentage
difference: -4.
Source: UNHCR.
[A] UNHCR's supplementary budget consists of budgets authorized by the
High Commissioner on an ad hoc basis for new situations that arise
after the meeting of the Executive Committee. These budgets are
exclusively funded from earmarked contributions and cannot be
transferred to cover shortfalls in the regular budget.
[B] Due to the introduction of a new budget structure in 2000,
subsequent regular and supplementary budget numbers are not directly
comparable with those in 1998 and 1999.
[End of table]
According to UNHCR program documents, budget shortfalls have forced the
organization to reduce the scope of refugee operations and cut some
protection activities altogether. For example,
* the Refugee Women's Unit cut field missions that were to support
refugee women's registration and documentation, as well as food
distribution and camp management;
* newly arrived Liberian refugee women were forced to reside in
overcrowded communal shelters;
* refugee registration programs in Iran were suspended; and:
* the number of protection officers monitoring the movements of
refugees across international borders in Pakistan was cut.
Flawed Staffing System Undermines UNHCR's Protection Mandate:
UNHCR lacks a strategic workforce plan that links the organization's
mission with its allocation of staff in the field. The organization's
staff assignment system and rotation policy leave numerous vacancies in
key posts. Stopgap staffing mechanisms UNHCR uses to address emergency
situations are intended only to address short-term emergencies and can
lead to additional problems. Thus the number of protection staff is
insufficient in many high-risk refugee situations and the organization
is struggling to meet this population's protection needs.
UNHCR Lacks a Workforce Strategy:
At the end of 2002, UNHCR had 1,301 professional staff, including 402
(31 percent) in headquarters and 899 (69 percent) serving in the field.
The professional staff carries out UNHCR's core mandate of protecting
refugees and the organization's 11 strategic objectives, such as
improving the physical protection of refugees and monitoring their
safety and well-being. Of these professional staff, UNHCR's 320
protection officers have primary responsibility to protect refugees and
other people of concern to the agency, although UNHCR's field officers
and community service officers (who are responsible for general
management and assistance functions) also have protection duties, such
as observing and reporting on potential problems.
However, according to the Deputy High Commissioner and the Director of
UNHCR's Human Resources, the current process for managing human
resources does not fully link the organization's objectives, budgetary
resources, and staffing. Currently, UNHCR's process for allocating
staff positions is largely based on available resources and broad
operational plans rather than the protection requirements of refugees,
according to UNHCR human resource officials. For example, in 2002,
UNHCR's Africa bureau and the Department for International Protection
conducted an assessment of the protection staffing requirements in
Africa and determined that 117 additional protection positions were
needed. Due to funding constraints, however, only 21 additional
positions were created. According to numerous relief and human rights
officials, including some in UNHCR, current UNHCR staffing levels in
Africa are insufficient relative to the protection caseload there.
Related to the lack of a strategic staffing process, UNHCR does not
conduct a global risk assessment of the threat level to refugees to
help determine the number and distribution of all posts that could best
protect refugees. Though determining minimum protection standards and
optimal distribution of posts is outside the scope of this review, our
analysis of high-risk countries found that UNHCR's distribution of
protection posts is not consistent with the risk level and the caseload
of the refugee setting.[Footnote 6] Specifically, high-risk countries
in Africa have 55 percent of the protection posts but nearly 80 percent
of the assisted refugee population. Conversely, high-risk countries in
Europe have 22 percent of the protection posts but only 4 percent of
UNHCR's assisted refugee population. Furthermore, nearly 60 percent of
the protection posts in low-risk countries are in Europe and serve less
than 30 percent of the population at this risk level. While protection
officers in low-risk countries in Europe play an important role in
influencing governments regarding asylum law, the bulk of their work
focuses on legal issues as opposed to the more immediate need of
physical protection. Figure 3 shows high-risk countries and the
distribution of protection officer posts and refugees within each
region.
Figure 3: Distribution of Protection Officer Posts and Assisted
Populations in High-Risk Countries:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Vacancies Pose Protracted Protection Problems:
Protection experts acknowledge that a visible field presence of staff
is one of the most effective means of preventing harm to refugees and
other vulnerable persons. However, since the mid-1990s, UNHCR has
identified staff vacancies, particularly in duty stations that already
function with minimal staff, as negatively affecting its ability to
fulfill its mandate. UNHCR staffing data in late 2002 indicated that 20
percent of its 320 protection positions were vacant. Table 2 shows
protection vacancies as of October 2002.
:
Table 2: Protection Officer Vacancies by Region:
Bureau: Africa; Vacancies in nondifficult duty stations: 10; Vacancies
in difficult duty stations: 21; Total vacancies: 31; Total protection
positions: 103; Percentage of protection vacancies: 30%.
Bureau: Central Asia, Southwest Asia, Near and Middle East; Vacancies
in nondifficult duty stations: 4; Vacancies in difficult duty stations:
9; Total vacancies: 13; Total protection positions: 49; Percentage of
protection vacancies: 27.
Bureau: Asia and Pacific; Vacancies in nondifficult duty stations: 5;
Vacancies in difficult duty stations: 1; Total vacancies: 6; Total
protection positions: 30; Percentage of protection vacancies: 20.
Bureau: Americas; Vacancies in nondifficult duty stations: 2; Vacancies
in difficult duty stations: 0; Total vacancies: 2; Total protection
positions: 15; Percentage of protection vacancies: 13.
Bureau: Europe; Vacancies in nondifficult duty stations: 6; Vacancies
in difficult duty stations: 3; Total vacancies: 9; Total protection
positions: 83; Percentage of protection vacancies: 11.
Bureau: Department of International Protection (headquarters);
Vacancies in nondifficult duty stations: 3; Vacancies in difficult duty
stations: 0; Total vacancies: 3; Total protection positions: 17;
Percentage of protection vacancies: 18.
Bureau: Total; Vacancies in nondifficult duty stations: 30; Vacancies
in difficult duty stations: 34; Total vacancies: 64; Total protection
positions: 320[A]; Percentage of protection vacancies: 20.
Source: UNHCR.
[A] Total posts include an additional 23 positions at headquarters.
[End of table]
The Africa region had almost half of all protection vacancies,
including all the protection vacancies UNHCR is chronically unable to
fill. We observed vacancies in key protection situations during our
fieldwork. For example, in Tanzania's Kibondo camps, two protection
officer posts were vacant, leaving only one junior protection officer
to cover 155,000 refugees. We also observed that vacancies led to
significant protection problems for refugee women and girls in and
around the African Great Lakes region (Burundi, the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Tanzania, and Rwanda) and West Africa (Liberia, Guinea,
Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast). The lack of sufficient staff resulted
in long delays in resolving individual protection cases, which in turn
discouraged reporting of additional sexual violence cases. For example,
in Tanzania, UNHCR protection staff told us that some sexual assault
cases were not pursued or were dropped altogether due to lack of staff
and other resources to devote to them. As a result, victims of sexual
violence often remained at risk while the perpetrator remained at
large. Numerous relief officials in the field with whom we spoke voiced
frustration over UNHCR's inability to follow up on protection cases
that were referred to them.
Staff Assignment and Rotation Policies Are Ineffective:
In general, UNHCR employs a voluntary staff assignment and rotation
policy: UNHCR does not direct staff where to serve, and staff members
are responsible for finding and applying for their next post before
their tour ends. While the High Commissioner emphasized in a 2001
letter to staff that it is incumbent upon UNHCR staff to be in the
field, near refugees, to provide effective protection, many hardship
posts are vacant or understaffed. One problem is that UNHCR does not
have a centralized way to track and ensure that staff members apply for
their next position,[Footnote 7] resulting in both post vacancies and
staff being without assignment. As of January 2003, according to UNHCR
staffing data, 109 staff were in-between assignments--staying either at
their home of record or at their old assignmentæwith an average of 4
months lapsing before staff took a new position.[Footnote 8]
Furthermore, UNHCR's regulations do not require staff members to rotate
among duty station categories (i.e., from a nonhardship to a hardship
duty station), although there is an expectation that they will do so.
According to some UNHCR staff with whom we spoke, there is a sentiment
among staff that being posted in a remote location (also referred to as
the ''deep field'') negatively affects a person's promotion potential,
as they would be "forgotten" by those making decisions in Geneva. In
addition, the percentage of staff over the age of 40 has increased from
54 percent in 1990 to 70 percent in 2000, and UNHCR officials
acknowledge that a larger percentage of this aging workforce is
reluctant or unwilling to serve in difficult duty stations because of
personal reasons. UNHCR's work requires many staff to live in remote,
isolated locations that are not conducive to family life, and with more
than half the duty stations designated as nonfamily, it is difficult to
find enough staff willing to be separated from their families.
According to UNHCR human resource officials, a further consequence of
the organization's limited rotation policy is that high-risk, hardship
duty stations are more likely to attract less experienced junior staff
without dependents than more experienced senior staff with dependents.
Stopgap Staffing Mechanisms Address Emergency
Situations but Have Drawbacks:
UNHCR relies on short-term staffing deployments during emergency
refugee operations to fill vacancies or augment country teams.
Deployments generally last for 2 months but can extend up to 6 months.
According to UNHCR and relief officials, while emergency deployments do
help fill an immediate protection gap, the system has several
drawbacks. Among them are the high operational and financial costs
involved in relocating staff. Emergency deployments require intensive
staff training and orientation and incur substantial transportation and
relocation expenses. The emergency deployment mechanism can also leave
a vacancy in the deploying staff's original duty station. In Tanzania,
for example, we observed that a senior protection officer responsible
for more than 100,000 refugees was away from his/her post for more than
6 months while on emergency deployment in Afghanistan. During Sierra
Leone's recent civil war, UNHCR had 77 emergency staff deployments on
2-month missions over a 19-month period. According to the Country
Representative, so many staff rotated in and out that he barely learned
their names. Relief officials active during the Sierra Leone emergency
told us that by the time the new UNHCR staff understood the local
protection context it was time for them to rotate back out, which
limited their effectiveness. According to another senior UNHCR field
official, the protection workload during Sierra Leone's civil war would
not have constituted an emergency if an adequate number of staff had
been assigned initially.
To help fill empty field positions, UNHCR also relies on U.N.
volunteers and project staff--workers contracted for a limited time by
a specific project. In 2002, there were 106 U.N. volunteers serving in
protection functions. However, according to UNHCR officials, while U.N.
volunteers are a valuable source of staff support, they are often
relatively inexperienced. Furthermore, according to UNHCR officials,
because project staff are not regular UNHCR employees and are governed
by restrictive employment regulations, they cannot work beyond an 8-
hour day or on weekends. As a result, according to these officials,
project staff are often unavailable during critical emergency periods.
In Tanzania, for example, many of the Burundian refugees arrive during
the night or over weekends, when crossing the border is considered
safer. Because only UNHCR staff are available to assist during these
surge periods, the workforce is even further strained.
Lack of Training Continues to Hinder Protection:
Although protection officers have primary responsibility for the
protection of refugees, UNHCR states that all staff serve in a
protection role. However, a long-standing impediment is insufficient
training for nonprotection staff on protection issues, especially
regarding women and girls. In our examination of UNHCR protection
reports and evaluations between 1990 and 2002, we found about half
cited the need for training to increase the organization's capacity to
protect women and children. However, during our fieldwork, we had
extensive discussions with UNHCR officials and their implementing
partners' staff and found that few of them had received any training on
protection issues. For example, in a meeting with UNHCR's field office
team in Kibondo, Tanzania, only 4 of 43 staff told us they had received
training on protection issues. Similarly, in discussions with staff
from UNHCR implementing partners, who are in the camps and in daily
contact with the refugees, only a few had any protection-related
training or were familiar with UNHCR's guidelines on the protection of
refugee women or children. In our discussions, we were further told
that protection training was needed in such areas as how to identify
and address sexual violence cases and how to work with refugee camp
leaders and the local community to solve protection concerns.
During the course of our review, we found that numerous protection
training courses and modules have been developed and made available to
UNHCR nonprotection staff and to implementing partners, such as
Protecting Refugees: A Field Guide for NGOs (1999) and Human Rights and
Refugee Protection (1995). However, according to several senior UNHCR
officials, the organization has not committed the necessary time or
resources to this training. These officials added that if UNHCR
continues to assert that all field-based staff serve as protection
officers, then it is incumbent that they be properly trained in
protection issues. Furthermore, according to UNHCR implementing
partners in Tanzania and Sierra Leone, there is a very high turnover
rate among nongovernmental organization staff in the field and
therefore a continuous need for training.
UNHCR Has Opportunities to Increase Partnering to Fill Protection Gaps:
While UNHCR has collaborated with international organizations such as
the International Rescue Committee, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, and
Save the Children in delivering humanitarian assistance, we observed
that there are also opportunities to work with these types of
organizations to help protect refugees. According to U.S. government
and relief officials with whom we spoke, including other organizations
in protection activities is necessary because of the increased scope
and complexity of refugee situations worldwide and certain governments'
restrictions on UNHCR's access to refugees and vulnerable populations.
According to officials of international and nongovernmental
organizations, these groups have some capacity and resources to assist
and augment UNHCR's protection efforts, though such collaboration has
been rare thus far. Based on our observations during fieldwork and
discussions with these officials, their organizations could provide
personnel and other resources to:
* assist in registering refugee women;
* provide legal case management of victims of rape and sexual violence;
* find durable solutions for refugees, such as identifying individuals
for third country resettlement;
* increase the number of international staff to monitor camps and
surrounding areas for protection problems; and:
* ensure systematic reporting of incidents.
In addition, UNHCR security personnel, who assess security and
situation risks for staff in the field, said they could apply their
expertise to refugees and other vulnerable populations and thus
supplement the work of protection officers.
During the course of our evaluation, we noted two partnerships already
in existence that could serve as useful models on which to expand. For
example, the International Rescue Committee's Protection SURGE Capacity
Project, started in 2001, placed 36 temporary protection staff in
nonemergency refugee situations. In Sierra Leone, we met with a SURGE
protection officer who was the only international staff available to
receive and relocate more than 10,000 fleeing Liberian refugees from
the border after unexpected fighting in Liberia erupted. Also, the Red
Cross Movement and nongovernmental organizations have recently
collaborated with UNHCR in designing a protection-training workshop,
called "Reach Out," for mid-level non-UNHCR staff.[Footnote 9] Figure 4
depicts the entrance of two refugee camps in Thailand. A nonsignatory
to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Thailand denies formal refugee status
to fleeing Burmese who are instead afforded only "temporary shelter"
along its border. UNHCR, which has only been accorded observer status
by the Thai government, relies significantly on nongovernmental
organizations to monitor the protection situation in the camps.
Figure 4: Refugee "Temporary Shelters" in Thailand:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Another group that UNHCR may have greater opportunity to work with is
U.N. peacekeeping forces, often the only international entity with some
capability to protect refugees and other vulnerable groups in
situations of armed conflict. We found that UNHCR and peacekeeping
forces have worked together in some instances when force commanders
judged that mission mandates, resources, and capabilities permitted
this collaboration. For example, a successful partnership occurred in
2001 when U.N. peacekeepers assisted in separating armed combatants
from a refugee camp in northwestern Congo. According to U.N. and relief
officials with whom we spoke, two key protection areas in which UNHCR
and peacekeepers have opportunities to work together are:
* ensuring access to vulnerable populations for humanitarian assistance
and protection; and:
* separating civilians from armed combatants in refugee camps and
settlements.
While UNHCR officials in general viewed partnering as a positive
development, they expressed concern that partnering could dilute the
agency's unique protection mandate by delegating its tasks to external
parties. This concern has grown as European donors have channeled
increasing proportions of their refugee funding to their bilateral aid
agencies and national nongovernmental organizations that operate
independently of UNHCR leadership. These officials noted that some
nongovernmental organizations hold political views that may complicate
UNHCR's relationship with the refugees' country of origin and country
of asylum. However, according to relief experts, partnerships can be
structured so UNHCR continues to be the main interlocutor with
governments and maintains primary responsibility for overall protection
while international organizations help fulfill discrete protection
tasks.
Despite Remedial Actions, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Power Still
a Problem:
Following allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by relief
workers and U.N. peacekeepers in refugee settings in West Africa in
2001, the United Nations and international organizations undertook a
number of remedial and preventive measures at both the global and
country level. At the global level, the U.N.'s Office of Internal
Oversight Services (OIOS) conducted a detailed investigation into the
allegations presented in the February 2002 report by UNHCR and Save the
Children-UK[Footnote 10] and concluded that the charges could not be
verified. However, during the course of the investigation, OIOS
discovered other specific cases of abuse and concluded that sexual
exploitation of refugees is a real problem. To address the problem, the
U.N.'s Inter-Agency Standing Committee[Footnote 11] established a task
force in 2002 and implemented a plan of action for U.N. agencies and
nongovernmental organization to follow. The plan focused on (1)
outlining preventive actions to help agencies create an environment in
humanitarian crises free of sexual exploitation, (2) providing basic
health and psychosocial care to survivors of abuse, and (3) developing
management and coordination mechanisms to ensure accountability of
humanitarian agencies.
We examined several international organizations' remedial actions and
found that they had made a concerted effort to address the issue of
sexual exploitation by their staff. For example, after reviewing
documents and discussing the issue with field staff from UNHCR, the
International Committee of the Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, and
the International Rescue Committee, we found that organizations had:
* sent clear statements to staff of their ethical responsibilities
toward refugees, the need for accountability, and "zero tolerance" of
exploitive behavior;
:
* developed or revised codes of conduct to guide the behavior and
attitudes of staff;
* provided awareness and training workshops for international and
national staff; and:
* polled country staff globally on the potential for situations of
sexual exploitation and conducted investigations of high-risk
environments.
Our extensive interviews with relief workers, peacekeepers, and
refugees in the field also indicated a very high awareness concerning
the issue of abuse of power, the ethical and professional conduct
expected of relief workers and peacekeepers, and the rights and
entitlements of refugees. We also observed that UNHCR had mechanisms in
place in the camps for refugees to confidentially report abuses of
power and had trained refugee women leaders to monitor for exploitive
situations. In Thailand's Mae La refugee camp, for example, we met
members of the women's committee who had received UNHCR sexual and
gender-based violence training, served as the camp's ''eyes and ears,''
and were actively engaged in managing cases of exploitation and
domestic and sexual violence. Figure 5 shows a woman from the Karen
tribe engaged in an income-generation project that supports women's
programs in the camp. Income generation and empowerment programs make
women less vulnerable to exploitation.
Figure 5: A Karen Women's Committee Income-Generating Activity, Mae La,
Thailand, 2003:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
A woman weaving cloth to be sold in the camp; proceeds are used to
provide members with income and to support women's programming in the
camp.
Despite these efforts by international organizations, abuse of refugees
continues to be a problem. During our fieldwork in Tanzania and Sierra
Leone refugee camps, we met with UNHCR and nongovernmental organization
officials who were actively investigating several new cases of sexual
exploitation by relief workers. In the Tanzania situation, eight
nongovernmental organization relief workers and four Tanzanian police
officers employed under a U.S. government-funded project were fired for
sexual exploitation of refugee girls or failure to report the
exploitation.[Footnote 12] In addition, senior UNHCR officials in Nepal
were dismissed for tolerating an environment of exploitation among
Bhutanese refugees by refugee men and Nepalese government officials
employed under UNHCR-funded projects.
Moreover, based on our fieldwork, analysis of UNHCR staffing, and
review of UNHCR's most recent reports on refugees (2000-2002), the
conditions in refugee camps create an ongoing environment in which
women and girls are vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse of
power. First, camps are sites of extreme poverty, and women are often
reduced to exchanging sex for otherwise unavailable food and nonfood
items such as clothing, shelter materials, and cooking items. According
to refugee women with whom we spoke, adolescent girls seeking such
items as clothes and jewelry are particularly susceptible to
transactional sex relationships. Second, there is limited monitoring of
camps because few UNHCR professional staff are present, leaving actual
day-to-day management of camps to locally hired staff or the refugees
themselves. Finally, some relief workers and refugee-led camp
management staff hold cultural attitudes that are accepting of sexually
exploitative arrangements and thus perpetuate the problem.
Although the issue of sexual exploitation of refugee women and girls by
relief staff has recently caught the attention of the public and
international organizations due to the publicity of the West African
case, the problem is long-standing and likely to continue, according to
relief and human rights experts. In our examination of UNHCR and
nongovernmental organizations' reports on refugee protection, we found
numerous references to refugee women being exploited while in camps and
recommendations for corrective actions (see app. II). However, it is
only recently that action has been taken. Given this situation, relief
and human rights experts, including senior UNHCR officials, emphasized
the need for a continuing high-level focus on preventing exploitation
by international organizations in such forums as the Inter-Agency
Standing Committee and UNHCR's Executive Committee. They noted that
international relief organizations are moving on to new emergencies and
priorities and feared that the current attention to preventing sexual
exploitation will wane before it becomes a part of organizations'
institutional culture.
U.S. Government Funds International Organizations' Protection
Activities:
The U.S. government addresses the protection needs of refugees and
other vulnerable populations primarily by providing funding to
international organizations mandated to provide protection. In 2002,
the Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
provided UNHCR $265 million in budget support--nearly 28 percent of the
organization's funding. Table 3 shows the amount of funds State
contributed to international organizations mandated to provide
protection.
Table 3: State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and
Migration Contributions to UNHCR, United Nations Children's Fund, and
the International Committee of the Red Cross, 1998-2002:
Dollars in millions.
1998; UNHCR: $268; UNICEF: $1; ICRC: $101.
1999; UNHCR: 293; UNICEF: 14; ICRC: 127.
2000; UNHCR: 261; UNICEF: 18; ICRC: 124.
2001; UNHCR: 243; UNICEF: 8; ICRC: 122.
2002; UNHCR: 265; UNICEF: 11; ICRC: 124.
Source: Department of State.
Note: The U.S. government's total contribution to UNICEF in 2002 was
$110 million, which includes emergency and regular budget support.
[End of table]
The Department of State also provides grants to nongovernmental
organizations to implement targeted protection activities to augment
international organizations' protection efforts. In 2002, State
provided $11.4 million to fund 35 discrete protection-related projects.
During our fieldwork we observed several of these small grant projects
(ranging from under $100,000 to $2 million) and found that they focused
on protection gaps. For example,
* In Tanzania, a $1 million grant strengthened the government's
capacity to maintain the civilian and humanitarian character of the
camps in its territory. The funding enabled deployment of nearly 280
Tanzanian police to the border camps to maintain law and order and
prevent and investigate crimes, including incidents of sexual and
gender-based violence.
* In Sierra Leone, a $630,000 sexual and gender-based violence
prevention and response program provided shelter for female-headed
households, income-generation and leadership training for women and
girls, gender sensitization training for host communities, and
psychosocial counseling, medical care, and rehabilitation support to
victims of sexual assault.
USAID is not directly involved in refugee protection programming;
however, a number of its humanitarian and development assistance
activities indirectly contribute to protection of refugees and other
vulnerable persons. USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance
provides non food humanitarian assistance, such as shelter, water
sanitation, and food security, to persons caught up in crisis
situations. The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance has also provided
funding to transport civilians facing imminent threat of physical
attack from insecure areas. USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives
also indirectly contributes to protection by assisting countries in
their transition from post-conflict situations to democracy. In
countries such as Macedonia and Angola, project staff have worked with
government leaders and populations to strengthen awareness of and
respect for human rights, advocated for a stronger role for women in
peace and reconciliation issues, and assisted ex-child soldiers in
their reintegration into society.
U.S. Government Also Advocates Strong International Response:
Apart from providing funding, the Department of State historically has
played an active role advocating within the international community for
increased attention and programmatic response to the plight of refugees
and other vulnerable populations. According to relief experts and
European government aid representatives, State's Bureau of Population,
Refugees, and Migration is unique among donors in the number of staff
resources devoted to managing refugee and humanitarian programs. In
addition to approximately 80 Washington-based staff, the bureau has 5
refugee officers serving in liaison roles with international
organizations in Geneva and Brussels, and another 19 overseas-based
officers monitoring refugee situations. According to U.N. and relief
officials with whom we spoke, the U.S. government is active in
assessing humanitarian needs in the field and promoting an
international response to them. A 2002 Overseas Development Institute
report characterized U.S. government staff as playing the role of
pushing and prodding UNHCR and its operational partners in their
programmatic responses.[Footnote 13]
We reviewed U.S. government policy positions and statements concerning
protection of refugees and other vulnerable persons since 1998 and
found that the U.S. government has consistently pushed for a strong
international response. For example, in early 2000, the U.S.
Representative to the United Nations strongly criticized the
international community for its failure to address the needs of
internally displaced persons. More recently the U.S. government has
argued for renewed support to UNHCR from the European Commission and
its member states, whose recent cuts in funding contributed to UNHCR's
budget crisis. As a member of UNHCR's governing body (known as the
Executive Committee), the U.S. government has consistently called for
increased and better response to refugee protection needs. Over the
last several annual meetings, the U.S. government has:
* encouraged UNHCR to ensure that protection is prioritized as its core
function;
* pressed for continuous focus on the prevention of sexual
exploitation;
* criticized staffing decisions by UNHCR management to cut posts in
Africa; and:
* called for an operations plan for the protection of women that would
identify benchmarks to measure progress, create a monitoring plan, and
establish a timetable for implementation of specific protection-related
actions.
Conclusions:
While international organizations have taken a number of steps in
recent years to improve the protection situation of refugee women and
girls, this population remains extremely vulnerable to sexual violence.
Among the factors undermining the international community's efforts are
the difficulty of protecting refugees caught up in conflict zones and
recurring budgetary shortfalls caused by donors not fulfilling funding
pledges. However, UNHCR's weak management of its workforce planning and
staffing system also significantly hinders protection of women and
girls. A strategic workforce process that emphasizes a performance-and
goal-oriented approach to human resource management could link the
organization's mission and goals to its workforce staffing. There are
insufficient numbers of protection staff in many high-risk countries,
and UNHCR's assignment policy has resulted in extended vacancies at key
protection posts. Furthermore, international relief workers who
implement assistance programs and have daily contact with refugees have
not received protection-related training, and many were unfamiliar with
UNHCR's guidelines on the protection of women and children. Despite
this, UNHCR's implementing partners and other international
organizations have significant resources and capabilities that provide
opportunities for partnering arrangements to fill protection gaps. In
response to allegations reported at the end of 2001 of sexual abuse and
exploitation of refugee women and girls by relief workers and
peacekeepers, the United Nations and international organizations
adopted codes of conduct stressing zero tolerance for such behavior and
implemented training programs on gender-based violence for all national
and international staff. In the four countries we visited, we found
that relief workers and peacekeepers were acutely aware of the
professional conduct expected of them, and refugees had access to
mechanisms to report any new problems of sexual exploitation.
Nonetheless, during our fieldwork we observed several new allegations
of sexual misconduct by relief workers. High-level management must
continue to focus on the issue of exploitation because extreme poverty
in camps, limited monitoring by relief workers, and cultural attitudes
of some camp staff continue to put women and girl refugees at risk.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To strengthen the international response to the protection needs of
refugees, especially women and girls, we recommend that the Secretary
of State work with member states to fundamentally reform UNHCR's
staffing system so that it can more effectively fulfill its core
protection mandate. Measures to accomplish this could include:
* creating a strategic workforce plan that systematically determines
priority staff positions worldwide, based on the relative protection
needs of refugees and realistic assumptions of available resources;
and:
* developing a staff assignment and rotation system that ensures
difficult and chronically vacant duty stations are filled with
employees with the requisite skills and experience, especially in
Africa.
We also recommend that the Secretary of State work with other U.N.
member states to:
* expand training opportunities so that international and
nongovernmental staff in positions of contact with refugee populations
are fully versed in protection policies and practical protection
techniques;
* encourage the development of protection partnering arrangements
between and among U.N. agencies and nongovernmental organizations to
better utilize and leverage program and staff resources currently
operating with vulnerable populations; and:
* ensure continued focus on efforts to prevent sexual exploitation of
refugee women and girls by making the issue of exploitation an annual
agenda item at refugee policy forums, including the U.N.'s Inter-Agency
Standing Committee and UNHCR's Executive Committee meetings.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
State and UNHCR provided written comments on a draft of this report and
we revised the report where it was necessary. (See app. III and IV for
a reprint of State's and UNHCR's comments.) State endorsed the intent
behind the report to improve the protection of refugee women and girls
and said it would exercise its best efforts to implement the report's
recommendations. State noted that a strategic workforce plan is key to
developing a stronger, more flexible workforce that meets UNHCR's
strategic needs. State also said it is essential that nongovernmental
organizations receive training on protection issues as they are on the
front lines and serve as protection "eyes and ears." In this regard,
State plans to promote a more disciplined application of training in
fiscal years 2004 and 2005.
UNHCR disagreed with our recommendation to fundamentally reform its
staffing system, stating that it already has processes for allocating
staff resources and that we did not take into account UNHCR's full
range of responsibilities. UNHCR believes that improved instruments and
capacity for placing staff and managing vacancies, along with more
predictable donor support for established priorities, are sufficient
elements for success. UNHCR did not indicate its position with regard
to our three other recommendationsæexpanding protection training
programs, developing protection partnering arrangements, and
maintaining international organizations' focus on combating sexual
exploitation of refugee women and girls. It did, however, describe
activities in which it is engaged pertaining to each recommendation.
Where appropriate we provided some of this information in the report.
Regarding our recommendation on staffing, we do not dispute UNHCR's
assertion that its mandate is not limited to the physical protection of
refugees and that it has many responsibilities, including status
determination and finding durable solutions for refugees. Our report
demonstrates the inadequacies of physical protection for refugees and
the lack of an overall strategic workforce plan that incorporates risk
to refugees. We used the World Bank's database for measuring risk
because it is an authoritative source of political stability and
violence measurements across 160 countries in the absence of any such
analysis by UNHCR. The problems associated with UNHCR's staffing system
have long been documented in Executive Committee and public and
internal UNHCR reports, including The State of UNHCR's Staff (December
2000) and In the Service of Refugees: A Review of UNHCR's Policy and
Practice on Rotations (October 2001), and provide ample evidence of a
staffing system failing to place the necessary number of people, with
the requisite skills, where they are needed most. UNHCR may disagree
with our use of the term ''fundamental'' when describing the reforms,
but we have observed that half-steps or partial measures will not solve
its staffing problems. According to the reports mentioned above,
previous attempts at improving separate aspects of the staffing system
have not achieved the desired results. At a minimum, UNHCR needs to
create a strategic workforce plan that links the organization's
objectives, resources, and staffing and systematically incorporates the
physical protection of refugees. It also needs to devise a staff
assignment and rotation system that fills vacant posts in high-risk
countries, especially in Africa.
Regarding our recommendation to expand training opportunities, UNHCR
stated that the report does not adequately reflect UNHCR's existing
protection training programs and activities and provided detailed
information on its training activities, including the Protection
Learning Program. During the course of our evaluation, we reviewed a
large number of protection training courses, modules, and materials and
spoke with staff who participated in the various training programs,
including the Protection Learning Program. By all accounts the
protection training programs and materials are very useful in
transmitting protection concepts and practical techniques to staff.
(However, we were told that the 4 month and 10 month Protection
Learning Programs are too time intensive for field staff.)
Nevertheless, when meeting with UNHCR and nongovernmental organization
staff at the camp level in each of our four case study countries, we
found that a large majority of staff had received no training on
protection matters. This and our overall analysis of international
organizations' training led to our recommendation to expand protection
training.
UNHCR stated that our report does not reflect the extensive partnering
arrangements in which it has engaged for decades and that it would
welcome more extensive involvement with other agencies on the provision
of services. It provided an outline of partnering arrangements between
UNHCR and other U.N. agencies. When we examined UNHCR's list of
arrangements and recent developments, we noted that they mainly involve
high-level meetings to coordinate assistance activities. Our
recommendation, however, is aimed at increasing the role of
international and nongovernmental organizations in the protection of
refugees. International organizations' daily interaction with refugee
populations and their organizational capacity could be better utilized
and leveraged to enhance refugee protection.
Regarding our recommendation on maintaining international
organizations' focus on combating sexual exploitation, UNHCR made no
comment on the substance of the recommendation but provided additional
information on activities it has taken over the last 20 months.
However, under Part B of its response, UNHCR stated that our summary of
the U.N.'s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report was not
an accurate reflection of the investigation's conclusion. UNHCR
referred to the report's conclusion at paragraph 42 as a more accurate
representation of the report and noted further that no allegations
against any U.N. staff member could be substantiated. Our statement
characterizing the OIOS report was taken from the fifth paragraph of
the Executive Summaryæthe first substantive discussion of the report's
findings, which states that "although the stories reported by the
consultants could not be verified, the problem of sexual exploitation
of refugees is real." We further note that 12 of the 17 recommendations
in the OIOS report are directed to UNHCR. We are concerned that the
principal message UNHCR has drawn from the OIOS report is that UNHCR
staff are exonerated from wrongdoing. Our perspective, however, is that
although U.N. staff members were exonerated from wrongdoing, the
problem of sexual exploitation of refugees is significant.
UNHCR also provided a number of technical comments, which we
incorporated as appropriate.
We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional
committees, the Secretary of State, the Administrator of the U.S.
Agency for International Development, the U.N. Secretary General, and
the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. We will also make copies
available to other parties upon request. In addition, this report will
be made available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://
www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-3149 or at gootnickd@gao.gov. Other GAO
contacts and staff acknowledgments are listed in appendix V.
Sincerely yours,
David Gootnick
Director, International Affairs and Trade:
Signed by David Gootnick:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To assess the gaps and weaknesses in the current international system
of protection of refugees and vulnerable persons, as well as the
actions the U.N. and international organizations have taken in response
to recent reports of relief workers' and peacekeepers' sexual
exploitation of refugee women and girls, we interviewed officials and
analyzed policy, program, and budgetary documents from the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping
Operations, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the U.N.
Children's Fund. In our work with UNHCR, we met with officials from 19
different offices and examined extensive staffing dataæincluding
vacancies, duty station categories, and worldwide distribution of
staff--and reviewed UNHCR staffing policies. We also met with officials
and reviewed reports pertaining to humanitarian and refugee issues from
numerous nongovernmental organizations and think tanks, including the
International Rescue Committee, the United States Committee for
Refugees, Refugees International, and InterAction.
To assess the steps the U.S. government takes to protect refugees and
other vulnerable persons, we interviewed officials and analyzed policy,
program, and budgetary documents from the Department of State's Bureau
of Population, Refugees, and Migration; the Bureau for International
Organizations; and the U.S. Missions to the United Nations in New York
City and Geneva, Switzerland. When examining State's small grants
program, we included only those projects that directly dealt with
protection matters, such as conflict prevention and reconciliation,
psychosocial assistance, sexual and gender-based violence prevention,
and transportation of vulnerable populations. We also met with
officials and analyzed program documents from the U.S. Agency for
International Development's Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and
Humanitarian Affairs, including the Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance and the Office of Transition Initiatives; and the Bureau for
Global Programs.
We also performed fieldwork in our case study countries of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Thailand
to assess the protection mechanisms in place for refugees and other
vulnerable persons in refugee camps and their surrounding areas within
those countries. These four nations face protracted refugee crises in
which refugees and other vulnerable populations are under imminent
threat of physical and sexual violence by warring parties, local
communities, and other refugees, and were recommended as representative
case study countries by State and think tank officials. In these
countries, we observed first-hand the protection programs and
activities conducted by U.N. organizations, peacekeeping units, the Red
Cross Movement, nongovernmental organizations, and the U.S. government.
We also conducted numerous interviews with refugee-led camp management
groups and individual women and girls to discuss the protection
situation in the camps, as well as the mechanisms in place to report
and address incidents of sexual and gender violence and exploitation.
Finally, we conducted an analysis of 22 UNHCR and nongovernmental
organizations' evaluations and reports issued since 1990 to document
the reported gaps in and recommendations to strengthen the
international community's system of refugee protection. We also
conducted a detailed analysis of the mandates and capabilities of the
13 current peacekeeping missions managed by the U.N. Department of
Peacekeeping Operations.
We performed our review from August 2002 through May 2003 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Catalogue of Refugee Protection Reports:
We examined 22 reports published since 1990 by UNHCR and
nongovernmental organizations that addressed problems related to
refugee protection. We focused on whether the report cited physical
violence, sexual abuse, or exploitation of refugee women and girls.
Each column heading denotes the year that the report was published. We
then identified eight discrete protection concerns that were commonly
discussed in the reports and listed them in the left column. Finally,
we analyzed the reports to determine whether a protection gap was
identified or a recommendation was made to address the specific
protection concern.
Bibliography:
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Note on Refugee Women
and International Protection, Department of International Protection,
EC/SCP/59, August 28, 1990. [Scope: UNHCR]
Executive Committee of the High Commissioner's Program, Forty-first
session, UNHCR Policy on Refugee Women, A/AC.96/754, August 20, 1990.
[Scope: UNHCR]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Refugee and Displaced
Women and Children, Economic and Social Council Resolutions, E/RES/
1991/23, May 30, 1991. [Scope: The International Community]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Guidelines on the
Protection of Refugee Women, July 1991. [Scope: UNHCR]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Progress Report on
Implementation of the UNHCR Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee
Women, Department of International Protection, EC/SCP/74, July 22,
1992. [Scope: UNHCR]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The Personal Security of
Refugees, Department of International Protection, EC/1993/SCP/CRP.3,
May 5, 1993. [Scope: UNHCR]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Refugee Protection and
Sexual Violence, Executive Committee Conclusions, No. 73 (XLIV) - 1993,
October 8, 1993. [Scope: The United Nations]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Report of the Working
Group on Refugee Women and Children, Department of International
Protection, EC/SCP/85, June 29, 1994. [Scope: UNHCR]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, A Review of UNHCR's
Women Victims of Violence Project in Kenya, Inspection and Evaluation
Service, March, 1996, and UNCHR's Women Victims of Violence Project in
Kenya: An Evaluation Summary, Department of Administrative and
Financial Matters, EC/1995/SC.2/CRP.22, June 8, 1995. [Scope: UNHCR and
Partner NGOs]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Refugee Camp Security in
the Great Lakes Region, Inspection and Evaluation Service, EVAL/01/97,
April 1997. [Scope: UNHCR and Partner NGOs]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Progress Report on
Refugee Women and UNHCR's Framework for Implementation of the Beijing
Platform for Action, Standing Committee, EC/47/SC/CRP.45, August 15,
1997. [Scope: UNHCR]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, A Survey of Compliance
With UNHCR's Policies on Refugee Women, Children, and the Environment,
Evaluation and Policy Analysis Section, EPAS/99/01, March 1999. [Scope:
UNHCR]
Machel, Graça, The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children: A Critical
Review of Progress Made and Obstacles Encountered in Increasing
Protection for War-Affected Children. This paper is a product of the
International Conference on War-Affected Children, Winnipeg, Canada,
September 2000. [Scope: The International Community]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, A Beneficiary-Based
Evaluation of UNHCR's Program in Guinea, West Africa, Evaluation and
Policy Analysis Unit, EPAU/2001/02, January 2001. [UNHCR and Partner
NGOs]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Evaluation of the Dadaab
Firewood Project, Kenya, Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, EPAU/
2001/08, June 2001. [Scope: UNHCR and Partner NGOs]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Meeting the Rights and
Protection Needs of Refugee Children: An Independent Evaluation of the
Impact of UNHCR's Activities, Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit,
EPAU/2002/02-ES, May 2002. [Scope: UNHCR]
Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, UNHCR Policy on
Refugee Women and Guidelines on Their Protection: An Assessment of Ten
Years of Implementation, May 2002. [Scope: UNHCR, NGO Partners]
American Council for Voluntary International Action (InterAction),
Report of the InterAction Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual
Exploitation of Displaced Children, June 2002. [Scope: The
International Community]
United Nations General Assembly, Executive Committee of the High
Commissioner's Program, Fifty-third Session, Agenda For Protection,
Addendum, A/AC.96/965/Add.1, June 26, 2002. [The International
Community]
Report of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Task Force on Protection
From Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Humanitarian Crises, June 2002.
[Scope: UN Agencies and Partner NGOs]
United Nations General Assembly, Fifty-seventh Session, Agenda Item
122, Report of the Secretary-General on the Activities of the Office of
Internal Oversight Services, Investigation Into Sexual Exploitation of
Refugees by Aid Workers in West Africa, A/57/465, October 11, 2002.
[Scope: UNHCR and Partner NGOs]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Implementation of the
Five Commitments to Refugee Women, 2002. [Scope: UNHCR, Host States,
NGO Partners]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments from Department of State:
United States Department of State Washington, D. C. 20520:
MAY 13 2003:
Dear Ms. Westin:
We appreciate the opportunity to review your draft report,
"HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE: Protecting Refugee Women and Girls Remain a
Significant Problem," GAO-03-663, GAO Job Code 320141.
The enclosed Department of State comments are provided for
incorporation with this letter as an appendix to the final report.
If you have any questions concerning this response, please contact
Margaret Pollack, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, Office
of Multilateral Coordination and External Relations, at (202) 663-1075.
Sincerely,
Christopher B. Burnam
Assistant Secretary for Resource Management and Chief Financial
Officer:
Signed by Christopher B. Burnam:
Enclosure:
As stated.
cc: GAO/IAT - David Gootnick State/OIG - Luther Atkins State/PRM -
Arthur Dewey State/H - Paul Kelly:
Ms. Susan S. Westin, Managing Director, International Affairs and
Trade, U.S. General Accounting Office.
HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE: Protecting Refugee Women and Girls Remains a
Significant Problem:
(GAO-03-663, GAO Code 320141):
We appreciate the chance to review the Report "Protecting Refugee Women
and Girls Remains a Significant Problem". The protection of refugee
women and refugee children has been and remains a core priority for the
Department of State.
We strongly endorse the intent behind the report to improve the
protection of refugee women and girls. The allegations of sexual
exploitation and abuse that surfaced in 2002 provided an added impetus
to the efforts already underway to address more effectively violence
against refugee women and children. The Report accurately reflects the
reality of efforts to date. UNHCR has indeed made major efforts to
improve the protection of refugee women and children over the past
years, but shortfalls in funding, lack of prioritization, and a less
than effective staff management system have hampered protection
efforts..
We note that -UNHCR has recently announced its intention to reform and
restructure its staffing systems. Its intent is to develop a stronger,
more flexible workforce with better gender balance, and guided by
better ground rules. We will follow closely the development and
implementation of this reform (as recommended in the Report), will work
with UNHCR and other member states to address the inadequacies of the
present system, and ensure that the new approach meets the strategic
needs of the organization. We concur with the report's finding that a
strategic workforce plan is key to making progress.
The recommendation on expanding protection training to the staff of
international and non-governmental organizations and developing
protection partnership arrangements reinforces the efforts we have
already undertaken. The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
strongly supports the "Protection Surge Capacity Project" and the
"Reach Out Project." We firmly believe that whatever the job
description that every humanitarian worker - international organization
or non-governmental organization - needs, in effect, to be a
"protection" officer. We acknowledge and support UNHCR's premier
protection mandate
and its systemic coordination role for protection. Non-governmental
organizations are also on the front lines and must also serve as our
protection "eyes and ears." It is, therefore, essential that they too
be provided with training on protection issues. We will plan and
promote more disciplined application of this training in support of our
critical protection activities in FY 04 and FY 05.
The Department of State is committed to ensuring continued focus on
efforts to prevent sexual exploitation of refugee women and girls in
all refugee policy forums as well as the UN's Inter-Agency Standing
Committee. We continue to lead a group within the context of UNHCR's
Executive Committee on sexual exploitation and are firmly committed to
ensuring that all organizations funded by PRM have endorsed the IASC's
six principles into their Codes of Conduct.
Finally, we would like to express appreciation for the acknowledgement
of the Department of State's efforts to advocate and program for better
protection of refugee women and girls. We insist on linking assistance
with protection as a central tenet of our funding practices on behalf
of all refugees - but especially women and girls. We remain relentless
in this linkage, and in implementing the recommendation of this very
useful report.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Comments from UNHCR:
UNHCR Response to May 2003 Draft Report, "HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE,
Protecting Refugee Women and Girls Remains a Significant Problem":
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is
pleased to review the draft report, "HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE,
Protecting Women and Girls Remains a Significant Problem" and to have
the opportunity to provide comments.
The General Accounting Office was requested to look into three aspects
of UNHCR's work in providing protection and assistance to refugees and
other vulnerable populations, in particular that of refugee women and
girls. This was - in part - prompted by concerns raised in 2001 as a
result of reports of alleged sexual exploitation of refugees by relief
workers. Although an intensive investigation by the Office of Internal
Oversight Services of the United Nations concluded that no UNHCR staff
were implicated, the Office of the High Commissioner continues to make
efforts to secure the protection of this particularly vulnerable
population.
The three objectives of the GAO investigation team were:
* To assess efforts by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to protect
refugees, especially with regard to women and girls;
* Determine what steps UN and international organizations have taken to
prevent sexual exploitation of refugee women by humanitarian workers,
and:
* To describe US government efforts to support adequate protection for
vulnerable populations/:
UNHCR is grateful for the professional and objective efforts of the GAO
in meeting with a number of our staff both at Headquarters and in the
field, and in observing our programmes in four countries over a three
week period. In its conclusions, the GAO team makes four
recommendations. In reviewing the draft report, UNHCR would like to
offer additional commentary to each recommendation (Part A) and to
provide specific corrections (Part B). In addition, as supporting
documentation not received by the GAO team, UNHCR is forwarding a
number of technical documents, which we respectfully request be
considered as an integral part of our comments.
(A) UNHCR Commentary:
Recommendation One: ... that the Secretary of State work with member
states to fundamentally reform UNHCR's staffing system so it can more
effectively fulfil its core protection mandate.
UNHCR appreciates the time the GAO spent to analyze aspects of UNHCR
operations and to provide suggestions for improvements. However, it
would seem that at least part of the basis for this recommendation
comes from use of non-UNHCR indicators of political stability and
violence in certain countries, which are described as "risk" factors
that are to suggest relatively higher need for protection staff in
these countries. This is then used to suggest that there are anomalies
in the current
placement of UNHCR protection staff throughout the world, and the
conclusion that these anomolies would be addressed by the development
of a strategy.
We believe that further information and analysis will be helpful in
understanding the actual situation UNHCR is in with regard to staffing
strategies. We think that this information would modify the
recommendation, which implies that UNHCR has no overall staffing
strategy for protection, and will put the comments of the DHC and the
HRM staff into perspective.
Foremost, UNHCR's mandate is not limited to the "physical" protection
of refugees. UNHCR's responsibilities are much broader and include the
full range of human rights . UNHCR also is required, inter alia, to
promote ratification by States of international instruments to protect
refugees; assist governmental efforts to promote voluntary repatriation
or assimilation within new countries; promote the admission of refugees
into countries and their access to procedures.
Placement of Protection Staff: Page 9 of the report, [Background
Section] notes that the GAO focused on the "physical dimensions of
protecting refugees, especially women and girls.". However, in some of
the analysis regarding workforce strategy, the Report compares
protection staffing for countries in which other than physical
protection activities are underway. While the report notes that the
bulk of the work done in Europe and Western countries is legal
protection, and not physical, it still makes the comparison for certain
European countries, which is not entirely valid, since it compares two
fundamentally different aspects of carrying out the protection mandate,
and depending on the situation, could even be comparing jobs with very
different skill requirements.
UNHCR has protection staff in Europe to interact with governments, to
promote adoption of legal instruments for protection, and development
of asylum systems. This is important work, often requiring specific
skill sets (legal background), and should not be compared to physical
protection responsibilities, some of which have legal backgrounds, and
some of which do not. With regard to Europe, it is important to note
that fully one-third of the protection staff in Europe are working in
Turkey and the Russian Federation, where UNHCR has particular
responsibilities for refugee status determination and resettlement.
Conversely, the data does not capture, for purposes of noting the staff
devoted to physical protection, the number of staff who are devoted to
this activity in large refugee population countries. The data should
include Field Officers, registration staff, community services
officers. etc.
How Protection Resources Are Determined: While the interviews with the
DHC and the Director of Human Resources noted that there was not a
specific document which in one place linked objectives to budget
resources, and thus to posts, one should not conclude that there is a
lack of process for setting budget priorities, and allocating
resources. In the Annual Programme Review, held in the Spring as a
precursor exercise to development of the following year's budgets,
overall workforce requirements are assessed. The annual Programme
Review is supplemented by periodic reviews of staffing in particular
situations during the course of the year. In fact, the report notes a
specific assessment on needs for protection staff in Africa.
However, in the Programme Review process, the actual requirements are
well beyond anticipated contributions for a given period, and thus not
all staffing proposals can be favourably considered. It should be noted
that UNHCR takes the issue of sufficient numbers of protection staff
seriously, so that between 2002, and 2003, in a time of significant
budget shortfalls, there was an overall increase in the number of
"officially designated" protection staff from 621 to 700. Within these
total numbers there has also been a reallocation of resources from
Southeastern Europe to other regions. When we inslude the staff posted
for Supplementary programmes in Afghanistan, Angola and West Africa,
the staffing component in 2003 exceeded 1100 positions.
Efficiency of the Human Resources System: The report highlights the
fact that there have been vacancies in hardship duty stations, and that
the UNHCR rotation policy creates certain inefficiencies in maintaining
continuously filled protection posts. While UNHCR confirms that this is
an issue that needs addressing, the extent of the problem needs to be
put into perspective. In this regard, we would like to note that the
vacancy statistics in the report include (1) posts which are advertised
in anticipation of the future rotation of a staff member, but in which
a current incumbent is still serving, and (2) those which are actually
vacant and without an incumbent. It is also important to note that more
than 80% of staff in between assignments are deployed on temporary
missions or assignments, or continue at their post until their
successor arrives in a duty station. The Office limits the number of
vacancies without even a temporary incumbent to the absolute minimum.
While some progress has been made in reducing the volume and duration
of elapsed vacancies, there is a need to revise postings policies and
rotation policies to make even further progress. A new set of rotation
and postings guidelines is under discussion in staff/management
advisory bodies at the current time. These guidelines introduce such
reforms as two principal end dates for assignments, which will help
improve workforce planning, as well. This measure will increase the
number and diversity of posts advertised twice a year, as well as the
number and diversity of who will apply. Benchmarks will be set to gauge
the efficiency of vacancy management, especially as concerns the
deployment of protection staff in field duty stations.
In conclusion, we do not believe that the need is for "fundamental"
reform of the staffing system, but rather improved instruments and
capacity for assessing placement of staff, as well as for vacancy
management. In addition, more predictable donor support for established
priorities is a key element of the success of these improvements.
Recommendation Two: ...that the Secretary of State work with other UN
member states to expand training opportunities so international and
non-governmental staff in positions of contact with refugee populations
are fully versed in protection policies and practical protection
techniques.
UNHCR provides its staff and partners with a host of training
opportunities. Staff development activities account for roughly two
percent of staff costs. For example, in 2002 3863 UNHCR staff and 1,178
partners participated in some form of training event. The numbers are
similar for 2001 and 2000.
Specialised training in protection and gender issues is also widely
available. As an example, the Action for the Rights of Children (ARC)
is an inter-agency training and capacity building initiative with the
International Save the Children Alliance, UNICEF and the High
Commissioner for Human Rights. It is based on the Convention on the
Rights of the Child and targets all persons under 18 years with a
comprehensive programme that includes resources such as International
Legal Standards, Abuse and Exploitation, Separated Children, Child
Soldiers etc. ARC training, moreover, forms an integral element of the
interventions of the emergency stand-by roster deployments from Save
the Children e.g. in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire etc.
Throughout the GAO report it is noted that that the organisation
provides "little practical training for most UNHCR and implementing
partners staff on protection concepts and techniques,"[NOTE 1]
including on how to identify sexual violence cases.[NOTE 2] It further
recommends the expansion of protection training programmes.[NOTE 3]
The recommendation to expand protection training is certainly welcome,
however, the report does not adequately reflect UNHCR's existing
protection training programmes and activities. The only training
material referred to in the GAO's draft report is the NGO Field Guide
(which is not in fact a training manual) and the 1995 training module
on Human Rights and Refugee Protection. It is regrettable that the team
was unable to meet with Senior Protection Training Officer.
UNHCR has made significant efforts to provide UNHCR staff with
comprehensive and practical training on protection, and to provide
training which specifically aims at enhancing staff capacity to prevent
and respond to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). These include
the ten-month Protection Learning Programme (PLP) for UNHCR staff and
the shorter four-month Thematic Protection Learning Programmes (TPLP)
for UNHCR senior managers.
PLP aims at creating a common understanding amongst all staff of
UNHCR's mandate for international protection and related international
standards, as well as enhancing staff capacity to ensure these
standards are applied in UNHCR's operations. Since the programme was
first piloted in August 2000, approximately 500 staff members in over
85 countries have participated in or are participating in this
programme. More recently, the PLP has been complemented by two TPLPs
for senior managers: Protection Strategies in the Context of Armed
Conflict, and Protection Strategies in the Context of Broader Migration
Movements. As outlined below, enhancing the capacity of staff to and to
ensure an appropriate protection response to SGBV features
significantly in all of the protection learning programmes.
The PLP is currently open to all professional staff (including UNVs,
JPOs and national professional staff) and senior general services staff
(G5 and above) working in support of protection. Due to resource
constraints, the length of the programme, and strong internal demand,
this programme is primarily for UNHCR staff, although a few NGO
partners are currently participating in the programme on a pilot basis.
At the end of 2002, DIP launched two Thematic Protection Learning
Programmes (TPLPs) for senior staff, each of which includes a brief
self-study phase (6 weeks), a highly participatory workshop (5 days)
and a post -workshop exercise (8 weeks). These programmes are:
* Protection Strategies in Areas Affected by Armed Conflict: to support
field operations in comprehensively protecting persons of concern to
UNHCR in situations of armed conflict (non-international or
international) as well as post-conflict scenarios.
* Protection Strategies in the Context of Broader Migration Movements:
to assist senior managers develop strategies and outline UNHCR's role
in relation to broader migration movements, particularly to ensure that
refugee concerns are met.
The TPLPs are open to all Senior Protection Officers, as well as
Representatives, Deputy Representatives and Heads of Offices who have a
significant understanding of UNHCR's protection mandate and related
international legal principles. Approximately 60 senior managers, who
spearhead UNHCR's operations worldwide, are currently participating in
the two pilot programmes.
The primary goals of the TPLPs are:
* To assist participants to continually update their knowledge base on
the developments in the field of refugee law, international human
rights and international humanitarian law, with a view to enhance their
capacity in applying this knowledge towards the protection of persons
of concern to UNHCR.
* To assist participants in appreciating the roles of other
international agencies and NGOs (such as ICRC, OCHA, ILO, IOM, UNICEF,
ICC the ad hoc Criminal Tribunals and human rights treaty monitoring
bodies) that support the work of UNHCR, and examine UNHCR's
relationship with these agencies, with the view to jointly improve the
situation of refugees and others of concern to the organization.
* To support efforts made by participants towards operationalizing the
Agenda for Protection and related policy guidelines by assisting in the
construction, development and implementation of protection strategies
on the specific themes offered by the TPLP.
* To enhance the participants' understanding of UNHCR's mandate in
relation to the protection of refugee women and children and mainstream
gender equality. In particular, to assist participants in developing
manageable protection systems to protect refugee women and children.
* For participants to advise DIP on the practical application of various
protection policies and standards in the field, and identify protection
gaps that requires further support in relation to the specific thematic
issues.
Recommendation three: Encourage the development of protection
partnering arrangements between and among UN agencies and
nongovernmental:
organizations to better utilize and leverage program and staff
resources currently operating with vulnerable populations.
The GAO report does not reflect the extensive partnering arrangements
in which UNHCR has been engaged for decades, and which it continues to
develop and refine. On a bilateral basis, UNHCR has partnership
agreements with WFP, UNICEF and other specialized agencies such as
UNIFEM, Habitat and UNEP as the chart below illustrates. UNHCR would
welcome more extensive involvement of other UN agencies in the direct
provision of services such as education and health to refugees. Having
said this, we do recognize the usefulness of increasing the use of and
capacity of our partners to assist us in our work.
NGOs have been the implementation partner for most of these services in
camp and in urban settings and as such receives a large percentage of
UNHCR's annual budget. NGOs often have the first point of contact with
refugee populations and through their direct management of camps in
health, community services, income generation, education and other
related protection programmes. The ICMC resettlement deployment scheme,
which makes available staff to UNHCR for refugee status determination,
are being expanded. The Surge project with IRC helps the Office to
provide additional protection staff in emergency situations. Stand by
arrangements with Save the Children (Sweden and Norway) have also
proven to be very successful.
Below, you will find an outline of the various partnership arrangements
between UNHCR and other UN agencies.
PARTNERSHIP UPDATE, January 2003 (UN and International Organisations):
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Recommendation four; Ensure continued focus on efforts to prevent
sexual exploitation of refugee women and girls by making the issue of
exploitation an annual agenda item at refugee policy forums, including
the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee and UNHCR's Executive Committee
meetings.
As long as refugees continue to live in situations of severe poverty
and deprivation, women and girl refugees will be vulnerable to
exploitation. UNHCR can ensure that its staff and its partners treat
all refugees with the dignity and respect for their rights to which
they are entitled. UNHCR can not alleviate the conditions in which many
refugees are forced to exist.
UNHCR has been highly engaged with this issue in the past 20 months,
including through the IASC and in on-going informal consultations with
the Executive Committee. Internally, the office has also made a number
of efforts. A Code of Conduct was enacted and as of March 2003 over
4000 staff had participated in specific training on the Code and its
implications for staff and partners. Moreover, -----international and
national staff members have signed the Code at every level of the
organisation. The Office has revised our implementing partners which
now require specific adherence to the principles contained in the HCR
and IASC codes of conduct.
Enhanced attention has been placed on updating and developing new
policy and training tools and elaborating effective strategies for
dissemination of these tools to front-line staff in the field. The 1995
Sexual Violence Guidelines has undergone a process of revision, and new
Guidelines on Prevention and Response to SGBV will be published in May
2003. Part of the dissemination strategy for the new Guidelines
emphasises a series of regional and country-specific training workshops
for staff members from different operations around the world in order
to introduce the contents of the Guidelines to them.
A draft basic awareness-raising manual on protection of women and
children's rights and prevention of sexual exploitation, was developed
by UNHCR staff in West Africa following the allegations made of sexual
exploitation of refugees by humanitarian workers. The draft manual has
been used to sensitise all levels of staff and is being used in other
regions beyond West Africa as a tool for raising awareness on the
protection of women and children's rights and the promotion of gender
equality.
An important component of ongoing training activities to enhance
protection of refugee women and girls is the strong emphasis being
placed on the participation of male staff of UNHCR and implementing
partners in such fora. This approach is being stressed as a means of
broadening responsibility for addressing gender issues within UNHCR
operations.
UNHCR has placed some attention on the task of broadening
accountability within the Organisation and among partners
organisations. Three recent evaluations undertaken to assess progress
on protection of refugee women, children and community services, all
underlined the need to enhance accountability mechanisms in this
regard, and also recommended the introduction of benchmarks to measure
accountability in relation to programming-protection operations as well
as individual staff performance.
UNHCR has also taken steps to strengthen its own investigative capacity
in order to provide timely and effective response to any allegations of
sexual abuse of beneficiaries by humanitarian workers.
Greater attention is being placed on increasing the numbers of new
female staff recruited to front-line positions in various operations.
While the recruitment of female staff, per se, is not the solution to
ending sexual exploitation of refugees, it is recognised that this
process will positively impact on the work environment and will also
facilitate increased confidence on the part of refugee women to share
their concerns with the female staff.
A greater degree of collaboration is being stressed between protection
officers and community services and field officers towards the goal of
enhancing protection of refugee women and girls. This approach aims to
encourage the establishment of multi-sectoral teams to jointly work on
addressing protection problems facing refugee women and girls, and
draws on similar efforts initiated previously in Turkey and the
Americas region.
In many country operations in Africa, Asia and Europe, action plans to
prevent and respond to SGBV have been developed by UNHCR field offices.
These action plans have been the result of consultations with
beneficiary communities and partner agencies, and are serving to guide
efforts to mainstream SGBV prevention activities within each of the
operational sectors. The mainstreaming of SGBV issues is being strongly
encouraged so as to avoid the danger of establishing stand-alone
programmes to prevent abuse and exploitation, which are not integrally
linked to the mainstream programmes of UNHCR, and which may therefore
result in a limited impact.
Although an effective mechanism for reporting on cases of SGBV in
different country operations is still required in order to assess
trends and ensure more targeted support for prevention and response
activities, some limited progress has been made to date in this regard
within a number of operations. In Tanzania, a monthly SGBV reporting
form has been developed, and is being used to capture general
information on levels and types of reported cases. This form has been
shared with a number of other operations, some of which like Nepal,
have adapted the form for use in capturing their own reporting on such
cases.
As part of ongoing efforts to improve field monitoring and reporting on
the High Commissioner's 5 Commitments, the Refugee Women and Gender
Equality Unit is working in partnership with the Evaluation Unit to
develop monitoring indicators to guide field reporting.
Some progress has also been made to date on implementation of the
individual commitments, including significant changes to the
registration process to support the principle of individual
registration. In several operations including Guinea, Kenya, Georgia,
Yemen and Ecuador, it has been possible to reach agreement with the
government on the principle of issuance of photo identity cards to all
adult men and women. With regard to ration cards, a new practice has
been introduced of including names of all adults in the family on the
family's ration card, rather than a single `head of family' as was the
practice in the past.
As regards the Commitment to provide sanitary materials to women and
girls, a budget line for sanitary materials has been established to
enable programme staff to allocate funds and protect the allocation
more easily. Efforts are also being made strengthen equal female
representation on camp leadership structures by investing in capacity-
building activities for refugee women elected to camp adminstration
committees.
Under-reporting of cases by victims/survivors continues to pose
challenges to efforts aimed at addressing the problem of sexual
exploitation. In some cases, a long-standing culture of impunity,
absence of mechanisms for ensuring confidentiality, the "settlement" of
such cases between family members of the victim and those of the
perpetrator and the long process involved in seeking legal redress, are
all factors that continue to impede victim reporting:
A further challenge which is being addressed through some of the
ongoing training initiatives, concerns the need to broaden the
conceptual framework for addressing SGBV, in such a way that the issue
is situated within the wider goal of promoting gender equality. This is
necessary to ensure that the starting point for UNHCR's interventions
address the root causes of SGBV, by working to reverse the negative
attitudes, practices and institutional barriers that erode and
undermine the ability of refugee women and girls to access their equal
rights, and which leaves them vulnerable to various forms of violence.
B. UNHCR Corrections to the Report:
UNHCR would like to correct the following factual errors;
1. Page 5 Para 2:
Quote:" Despite these efforts, international organizations still face
continuing sexual exploitation of refugees by relief workers. Although
the in-depth investigation could not verify specific charges of abuse,
it found other cases and concluded that sexual exploitation by relief
workers was a real and significant problem.":
This is not an absolutely accurate reflection of the conclusions of the
OIOS investigation. The OIOS report states in its conclusion at para
42:
"The Investigation Team found, however, that the impression given in
the consultants' report that sexual exploitation by aid workers, in
particular sex for services, was widespread is misleading and untrue.
None of the specific stories cited against aid workers named in the
consultants' report could be confirmed despite a six-month-long effort
by the Investigation Team - for reasons previously cited in this
report. Furthermore, refugees and aid workers interviewed in the course
of the investigation were unanimous in stating that sexual exploitation
in the context used in the consultants' report is not widespread. The
relationships perceived as exploitative by the consultants were in most
cases relationships between refugees.":
Furthermore the OIOS investigation found that of the 43 other cases
brought to their attention , 10 could be substantiated. Of these, 8
involved NGO staff, one a UNV and one a peace keeper. No allegation
against any UN staff member could be substantiated. (para 6 summary):
2. Page 10:
Reference made to existing Guidelines and tools available for training
UNHCR staff should also mention that the 1995 Sexual Guidelines have
been revised to Guidelines on Prevention and Response to SGBV. Two
additional training tools also worthy of mention here are: The People-
Oriented Planning tool (POP), which is used to build staff capacity for
undertaking gender analysis, and the Action for the Rights of the Child
(ARC) training toolkit.
3. Page 15:
Reference to the role of protection and community services staff cites
protection staff as having primary responsibility for protection of
refugees. This should perhaps be amended to stress a shared
responsibility between protection, community services and field
officers for overseeing protection needs of refugees, in line with the
approach being promoted within the Organisation.
4. Page 13, last paragraph:
"The approved budget is based on pledges of support from executive
committee members themselves and other donor governments. However, in
recent years donor governments have failed to meet their funding
commitments.":
This statement is misleading. It implies that when UNHCR's budget is
approved, it is underwritten by pledges equal to the amount of the
budget approved. This is not the case. UNHCR's budget is approved with
the
assumption that funds will be made available by donors. Recent budgets
have been developed in the context of "fundable" levels, but as the
report points out, there continues reference to funds being made
available.
5. Page 21, last paragraph:
A distinction should be made between EPRS deployments, which can not
last for more than 2 months maximum, and other deployments (often SIBA)
which can extend up to 6 months or more.
The point that this paragraph is trying to make is not clear. It
criticises short-term emergency deployments but has nothing to propose
instead. Also it does not take into account the fact that at the
beginning of an emergency situation posts do not exists to which staff
could be quickly assigned. Emergency deployments are therefore
inevitable.
6. Page 24, paragraphs 2 and 3:
Partnership opportunities as proposed by the GAO should be seized
whenever possible but there are nevertheless also some drawbacks of
which we should be aware.
-Only some NGOs have independent financial resources, thus only they
and not local NGOs could increase UNHCR capacity. This is not always in
our interest. Local NGOs and government need to take on certain
responsibilities directly and not merely watch others who have come
from outside do it for them.
-International NGOs depend for the most part on the same sources of
funds as UNHCR and the rest of the humanitarian world. Increased
capacity will only be achieved if resources brought by NGOs are
additional to those usually provided to UNHCR and not merely funds
recycled through NGOs rather than through us.
7. Page 24, last sentence of paragraph 2:
UNHCR's Emergency and Security Service has redrafted the job
descriptions of UNHCR Security Officers to make them responsible not
only for staff security but to give them responsibility for refugee
security.
8. Page 30:
Some UNHCR staff working in Nepal have been suspended.
NOTES:
[1] Executive Summary. See also pp. 5, 9, pp.22 - 23, 34.
[2] DRAFT REPORT, P. 9.
[3] Draft Report, p.6, 35
[End of section]
Appendix V: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
David B. Gootnick (202) 512-3149
Tetsuo Miyabara (202) 512-8974:
Acknowledgments:
(320141):
In addition to those named above, Janey Cohen, Jonathan Weiss,
Christina Werth, Richard Seldin, and Patrick Dickriede made key
contributions to this report.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Additional international instruments underpinning the rights and
guarantees relevant to the protection of refugee women and girls
include the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, ratified by the United Nations in 1979;
the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, adopted
by the U.N. General Assembly in 1993; and the subsequent Global
Platform for Action, adopted at the Beijing Fourth Conference on Women
in 1995; U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000); and Guidelines
on International Protection: Gender-related persecution (2002).
[2] Workshop on Protection of Human Rights and Humanitarian
Organizations: Doing Something and Doing It Well, report of the
workshop held at the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva,
Switzerland, January 2001.
[3] UNHCR Policy on Refugee Women recognized that protection needs of
men and women differ significantly and emphasized the importance of
mainstreaming women's protection needs into all protection and
assistance activities.
[4] Sexual Violence Against Refugees: Guidelines on Prevention and
Response outlined practical steps and provided basic advice on
preventing and responding to sexual violence, including the associated
key legal, medical, and psychosocial issues.
[5] Unlike other U.N. system organizations, UNHCR's budget is not based
on assessed contributions from member states, but is voluntary. The
U.S. government annually contributes 25 percent of UNHCR's approved
budget.
[6] UNHCR does not formally designate risk levels for refugees. The
World Bank has developed a database for measuring risk and governance;
it includes 160 countries and is based on information from sources such
as Standard and Poors and the World Economic Forum. We used political
stability/violence measurements from this database to identify
countries of high risk (Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay, and Pablo Zoido-
Lobaton, "Governance Matters II: Updated Indicators for 2000-01"),
World Bank Policy Research Department Working Paper (Washington, D.C.:
2002).
[7] The onus is on the individual staff member to apply for his or her
next post; UNHCR has no mechanism to ensure that staff apply in time
for a seamless transition from one post to another.
[8] During the comment period on the draft report, UNHCR clarified that
80 percent of staff in between assignments are deployed on temporary
missions or assignments, or continue at their post until their
successor arrives.
[9] Both the Protection SURGE Capacity Project and the Reach Out
protection training initiative were funded by State's Bureau of
Population, Refugees, and Migration.
[10] UNHCR and Save the Children-UK, Sexual Violence & Exploitation:
The Experience of Refugee Children in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone
(Geneva: United Nations, Feb. 2002).
[11] The U.N. Inter-Agency Task Force is composed of the following
members: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, U.N.
Development Program, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, U.N.
Children's Fund, World Food Program, Food and Agriculture Organization,
World Health Organization, and the U.N. Family Planning Agency. In
addition, there is a standing invitation to the International
Organization on Migration, International Committee of the Red Cross,
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Representative of the
Secretary General on Internally Displaced Persons, the World Bank, the
International Council of Voluntary Agencies, InterAction, and the
Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response.
[12] All State Department funded nongovernmental organizations are
required to incorporate the Inter-Agency Standing Committee's six core
principles into their codes of conduct.
[13] Overseas Development Institute, The 'bilateralization' of
humanitarian response: trends in the financial, contractual and
managerial environment of official humanitarian aid (London, U.K.: Oct.
2002).
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