Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

180 Chapter 4
efforts of the United Nations organs within the Secretariat, 408 UNHCR,
as a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, was presumably
included in this request.
Depending on the policy directives of the General Assembly,
UNHCR functions de facto as a political body in order to fulfill its
humanitarian mandate within a highly political context. Strengthening
its own sources of authentic and impartial information on causal factors
and moving toward a broad solution-oriented approach encompassing
preventive measures could further UNHCR's objectives of providing
international protection and assistance to persons of concern.
From its experience with particular situations, UNHCR is better
placed than any other U.N. body to determine the potential of particular
situations for causing refugee movements. Working in most of the
trouble spots, the Office can readily detect factors that would trigger
population movements if they were allowed to deteriorate. 409
Furthermore, it has offices in more than 100 countries (some of which,
as regional offices, cover more than one country, for a total of more
than 130 nations) and has direct access to those who provide the most
important first hand information: the refugees themselves. No other
U.N. organization has such widespread access to potential refugees and
refugee-generating situations around the world. UNHCR has also the
experience and expertise to provide guidance in refugee-related
situations to States and organisations. In restructuring its channels of
information to take a more active role in assessing potential refugeeproducing
conditions, UNHCR can be of particular help to the U.N. in
its increasingly successful role in regional conflict resolutions.
a) Potentials and limitations on UNHCR's work in the country of origin
There are many factors that had held UNHCR back from integrating
country of origin/early warning into its functions. The following
comments were inspired by discussions with Lance Clark, formerly
Research Associate of the Refugee Policy Group, Washington. He felt
that in most cases UNHCR staff did not seek out early warning
information as actively as they should. 410
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408 UN doc. A/41/324, paragraph 70.
409 In detecting such factors UNHCR would not need to pass judgement
410 Lance dark, "Recommended next steps for UNHCR regarding early
warning," Washington, D.C.: Refugee Policy Group, (1988) p.l.
New Approaches and Policies 181
One of the most important constraints on UNHCR is its traditional
avoidance of activities that might be interpreted by governments as
interfering or political. For this reason, UNHCR job descriptions have not
included instructions for assessing and reporting conditions in potential
refugee-producing situations. Where field officers have undertaken such
efforts on their own initiative, they have often been reprimanded and
discouraged from further attempts.
The following are among the constraints on UNHCR's attempts to
take a more active role in potential refugee-producing situations. While
the stumbling blocks seem formidable they are not insurmountable.
These include:
- Lack of confidential channels within UNHCR;
- Insufficient financial resources to undertake the extra work of systematic
reporting on potential refugee flows;
- Danger that UNHCR be accused of producing a "pull-factor" by building
- contingency plans based on advance information.
- Lack of basic data to enable the field office to accurately assess
information at hand and predict the impact of possible developments;
- Lack of trustworthy sources of information in the field (which is often the
- situation in politically sensitive contexts);
- Insufficient time and background knowledge at headquarters, to interpret
raw data reported from the field offices partly due to high staff turnover;
- Strain on organizational and staff capacities to handle additional functions
of
- information-gathering and processing on top of current work pressure to
cover needs of refugees already under UNHCR's care;
- Restricted access to conflict areas by UNHCR either within the country of
origin or across the border, where some first refugees might have been
reported to arrive;
- Rapid staff rotation, usually requiring new staff members to concentrate
on narrowly defined specific jobs.
It is being explored to provide specific training in the area of early
warning/country of origin information and preventive protection. Among
the new measures the following are appearing with growing frequency on
the training schedules:
1. Ensuring that new staff members receive a comprehensive orientation to
their tasks, including early warning activities;
2. Providing training in early warning reporting to all staff members
regardless of their official functions;
3. Thorough briefing of UNHCR staff posted in new countries about possible