16th Meeting of Senior Fellowships Officers of the ... - Development

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16th Meeting of Senior Fellowships Officers of the United Nations System and Host Country Agencies
slowdown in the fellowships placements in Western countries, especially since September
2001.
93. Reviewing the trends in the EMRO fellowships programme in light of the South-
South cooperation over the past 22 years from 1984 to 2005, Dr. Hassanabadi provided
concrete figures which showed that the yearly total number of fellows had always
stayed around 1,000, with a drop to 823 fellows after September 2001. By 2004, the
fellowships programme was up again to 1,042 fellows. Dr. Hassanabadi drew the attention
to the unfolding of events in some specific countries. In Afghanistan the number
of fellows drastically dropped during the first half of the 1990s. Even after the end of
the Taliban regime the number did not increase mainly because many different agencies
and donor countries were running a multitude of programmes. In Iraq, where a
drop had occurred from an average of around 50 fellows per year to below 20 after
September 2001, the number had increased to over 270 because WHO was the leading
agency in Health and Human Resources for Health. In Palestine the main difficulties
that WHO faced were the selection of candidates, the arranging of their travel abroad
as well as the evaluation, administration and monitoring of their studies. Nevertheless,
the number of Palestinian fellows had increased to over 60 per year. In Sudan WHO
faced a situation where many of the educated people had left the country in the 1990s,
a common problem to many of the African EMRO countries. Stable countries like
Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan or Bahrain saw dropping numbers in WHO fellowship awards
because they had managed to develop their capacities over the last 20 years and had
moved on to play an important role as host countries.
94. Most of the EMRO fellows were placed within EMRO countries, with Egypt as the
main host, followed by Lebanon, Bahrain, Oman and Jordan. However, Iraq, which
had hosted fellows until the end of the war with Iran in 1988, had since stopped hosting
fellow completely. Iran saw an increase in hosted fellows since 1988, especially in
primary and mental health areas. In 2004, over 65% of the WHO fellows were placed
within the EMRO region and only 17% within the European region where, 22 years
ago, EMRO placed 45% of all its fellows. However, due to political circumstances,
it was sometimes particularly difficult to place fellows within the EMRO region. Dr.
Hassanabadi did not fail to mention the fact that in some cases placements took up
to two years and at times they proved to be just impossible. Since September 2001,
EMRO experienced severe difficulties in placing fellows in the American Region. Consequently,
the number of fellows from EMRO who were hosted by AFRO countries
increased from 1.5% in 2001 to 9.2% in 2004.
95. Dr. Hassanabadi ended his presentation by offering a few conclusions as food for
thought. Firstly, before making a decision whether to place some fellows in the North
or in the South the Fellowships Officers should weigh in the advantages and disadvantages
of each placement in terms of costs, the average placement time as well as
administrative work involved. Secondly, the question of quality vs. quantity should be
approached. He already tackled the quantity aspect in his presentation but was there