In the early 1990s, in the context of increased humanitarian and protection needs, UNHCR and NGOs agreed on the necessity to develop a framework for their cooperation in order to improve their partnership in refugee assistance and protection.

Over 200 NGO and UNHCR representatives gathered in Oslo, Norway in June 1994 for the Partnership in Action (PARinAC) Global Conference. The Conference adopted the Oslo Declaration and Plan of Action, including more than 130 recommendations; the result of a year of consultations and regional meetings between NGOs and UNHCR. The recommendations provide a common agenda in five priority areas: protection, internally displaced persons, emergency preparedness and response, the relief to development continuum, and NGO-UNHCR partnership.

The PARinAC process has introduced new structures and mechanisms for cooperation at the regional and national levels: "focal points" from UNHCR and NGOs are selected to identify areas where partnerships could be further strengthened. Over the last five years, "PARinAC" has come to refer to every activity in which NGOs and UNHCR are involved together.

While the PARinAC process has contributed to an increased awareness in the international community of the potential of national and local NGOs in refugee matters, truly efficient and productive cooperation and coordination among UNHCR, NGOs and governments remains challenged.

From the outset, different NGOs have understood the process differently. National and local NGOs found a new space for dialogue with UNHCR. Most major international NGOs, which had already access to UNHCR, considered the process to be a another means of "lobbying" UNHCR.

Communication problems still prevail between NGOs and UNHCR and between NGOs themselves, often due to a lack of resources. In some regions, national focal points do not exist. Roles and objectives of focal points need to be clarified.

Two parallel processes for UNHCR-NGO cooperation have developed outside PARinAC: the CIS Conference and the protection Reach Out process. Ways to relate these processes to each other must be found.

In 1998, UNHCR proposed to review the structures of PARinAC and refocus the process through a Plan of Action for the year 2000. A draft report on PARinAC was issued in September 1999 with recommendations that aimed at a further strengthening of partnership at the national and local levels.

Among those proposals, the convening of regional meetings on a yearly basis would certainly have a very positive impact on improving communications between focal points. The submission of a report about PARinAC to UNHCR's Standing Committee and Pre-Excom would also give credibility to the process. Other recommendations address vital issues such as ways PARinAC could support NGOs capacity-building or become a co-ordination tool in emergency situations.

Since the beginning of the process, ICVA has acted a global focal point for the process. To further develop this role, ICVA has recently submitted a preliminary proposal to UNHCR to set up an interactive PARinAC website, similar and parallel to the interactive ICVA website.

The PARinAC review should provide an opportunity to reassert that the Partnership in Action process is not a rigid framework defining strict rules of partnership between UNHCR and NGOs but rather an ongoing process that favours all possible ways of strengthening partnership.

For further information please contact ICVA: secretariat@icva.ch, tel. +41 22 9509600.