PRESS RELEASE

ICVA calls on UNHCR candidates to express their views

Geneva, 10 March 2005

A major international NGO network, the Geneva-based International Council of Voluntary Agencies, has offered the candidates put forward for the post of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees a public forum to express their views on the requirements for the position and the challenges facing the agency.

The race for the position is heating up as the deadline passed yesterday for submitting nominations to the UN Secretary-General. In a welcome step by the UN Secretariat to open up the selection process, some NGOs, including ICVA, were invited to put forward names. In a letter from the Secretary-General's office has put forward clear criteria, which will be used for selecting the new High Commissioner through a "rigorous interview procedure."

The list of names that ICVA submitted yesterday, include: the UN Special-Representative of the Secretary-General for Kosovo, Søren Jessen-Petersen; the Special Advisor to the Emergency Relief Coordinator on internal displacement, Dennis McNamara; and, the (former) Special Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on human rights in Sudan, Ian Martin.

Other candidates that ICVA is aware of, and who also have been invited to provide their views, include: Emma Bonino, Hans Dahlgren, Jan Egeland, Gareth Evans, Bernard Kouchner, and Kamel Morjane.

In addition, some names that seem to have been floated, but to whom ICVA has not written, include: Jose Maria Aznar, Poul Nielson, and Sashi Tharoor.

"With the closing of the nominations, the UN Secretary-General would be well served by ensuring that the process continues to be transparent and based on clear criteria, instead of it being turned into the horse-trading that has been seen in the past," says ICVA's Coordinator, Ed Schenkenberg. Meanwhile, the candidates should provide to the stakeholders of UNHCR more detailed explanations of what they would bring to the position of High Commissioner.

In a special issue of its newsletter, Talk Back, (issue # 7-1, 9 March 2005), ICVA raises a number of critical issues and challenges facing the next High Commissioner on which the candidates are expected to react. These include, among others, questions on the relevance of UNHCR's mandate under the present circumstances of a declining number of refugees and asylum-seekers; the response to the restrictive policies of governments with regards to refugees and asylum-seekers; the need for clarity on the UNHCR's role with internally displaced persons; and the question of how to address the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation by humanitarian staff.

The effort to take a new approach to appointing a senior UN official is a welcome one that very much meets the criticisms that NGOs have had of the appointment process in the past. In 2000, ICVA also made efforts to open up the process by publishing some of the candidates' visions for UNHCR, but those seemed to be very much in vain with the surprise appointment of former Dutch Prime-Minister Ruud Lubbers.

NGOs are stakeholders in the selection process, given their close relations with UNHCR. NGOs carry out a significant part of UNHCR's programmes. Many of these NGOs are part of ICVA's membership, which comprises more that 75 international NGO families and NGOs. ICVA is also the focal point for NGO relations with UNHCR.

For further information, please call: Manisha Thomas, +41 79 253 588 11.
For ICVA' s newsletter, Talk Back, issue # 7-1, 9 March 2005,
please visit ICVA's website: < http://www.icva.ch/cgi-bin/browse.pl?doc=doc00001330>