*For your information and action by 8am (Geneva time, GMT+2) WEDNESDAY 3 MARCH at the latest*
**If you would like to comment on the new version of the MFU, please request the mentioned documents by writing to this address**

UNHCR Convention Plus Debriefing on Resettlement Meeting of 29 and 30 January 2004
On the Draft Multilateral Framework of Undertakings on Resettlement

ICVA NOTE TO NGOs

At the previous meeting of the core group working on the Resettlement strand of Convention Plus (which was held on 24 November 2004), it was decided that a draft multilateral framework of undertakings would be discussed at the next meeting of the core group. NGOs were invited to provide comments on the first draft prior to the meeting in January where States and UNHCR were to go through the draft. The NGO comments on the first draft are available on ICVA's website (members' only section): http://www.icva.ch/cgi-bin/member/browse.pl?doc=doc00001106 or upon request.

On 4 February, William Lundy from the Canadian mission and UNHCR staff from the Convention Plus Unit (the co-chairs of the Resettlement strand) de-briefed NGOs on the meeting of the core group that had been held over one and a half days at the end of January (28 and 29 January). The meeting was a drafting session where delegates went through the draft Multilateral Framework of Undertakings on Resettlement (MFU) paragraph by paragraph. The NGO comments were shared with core group members by Canada.

The meeting was only able to discuss the paragraphs up to and including the section on Family Unity. There was good, broad support of the draft with some concerns expressed over the prescriptive language contained in the text. There were very few serious disagreements, but there are also still a number of areas in the text with the potential to draw serious discussions.

There were questions raised about including linkages to Convention Plus and other durable solutions and some language will be brought into the preamble to address this concerns. Paragraph 5 of the preamble was to be completely rewritten in order to bring in references to the Refugee Convention and human rights. There was also a push to have language that would say that resettlement criteria should be based in national law. The title will be revisited at a later stage.

Under the Leadership section, there was discussion around the terminology of "parties" since there are no "parties" prior to an agreement coming into place. The NGO comments had suggested language to include refugees in the consultations that UNHCR would lead prior to the start of a resettlement operation (paragraph 8). There was also some discussion around the terms "implementing partners" and "operating partners". The first was seen as partners that are acting on behalf of, and taking money, from a party, while operating partners were seen as independent of parties. In some places in the text, the term "partners" refers to both.

The paragraph on non-discrimination (paragraph 20) had "gender" added to it. The discussion around the paragraph, however, is not over. Some States felt that nationality should be a way to screen out refugees for resettlement. There was a proposal to add the phrase "…not be arbitrarily screened out…" to the original, "Refugees deserving and in need of resettlement will not be screened out of a resettlement operation solely on account of their nationality, ethnicity, religion or country of origin."

The NGO comments under the Family Unity section were kept until the discussion on integration (a section of the document that was not reached in the January meeting).

Finally, there was a suggestion to field test a final draft of the MFU before actually concluding the document.

Next Steps:
Since there was still much of the document to be discussed, it was decided to have another meeting on 4 and 5 March to discuss a further draft. How the document will be taken forward after this 4-5 March meeting is an issue that the core group will be discussing. Two documents have been drafted in preparation for this meeting. The first is a revised text of the "Multilateral Framework of Undertakings On Resettlement," which is meant to be reflective of the discussions at the January meeting. In addition, some of the language in this version of the MFU was amended in paragraphs that have not yet been discussed. These changes were made in-line with a suggestion by Erika Feller to use language similar to that in the Agenda for Protection (for example "to do" instead of "will do"). Some of the text in the document is bracketed, but none of the text has been "adopted" as of yet. The second document prepared for the meeting includes "possible introductory paragraphs for each section" and will also be discussed at the meeting.

NGO Input:
NGOs have been invited to again provide their consolidated comments prior to the March meeting. We apologise for not being able to get this message or the documents to you earlier. If you are interested in commenting on the two documents, please request them from this address. In making your comments, you may want to consider the discussion noted above around implementing and operating partners.

As the meeting is on Thursday 4 March, we need to get our comments into the Canadians by Wednesday morning at the latest. The NGO comments on the previous version will be included again in this version. As such, there is no need to repeat your comments on the previous draft as we will include the same ones again.

**We would request that you please send your comments to this address by 8am (Geneva time, GMT+2) on WEDNESDAY 3 MARCH at the latest.**

*** If you request the document, but do not receive it by Monday 16:00 (Geneva time), we would ask that you please call us. We are currently having problems receiving e-mails, but hope that these will be resolved by Monday morning at the latest. ***

With best regards,
ICVA Secretariat