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
two to three weeks. NUFFIC’s experience in 2006 showed that, even though the visa process
ran smoothly, the issue was far from being solved. NUFFIC employed three people
to deal exclusively with visas.
141. The question of visas was of great concern to all agencies. It triggered many statements
about cumbersome experiences and a thorough discussion about ways to better the
situation.
142. Several agencies like WMO, UN/DESA and WHO considered that visas were the
responsibility of the fellow and the receiving country. Therefore, they would not intervene
actively in the visa process.
143. IAEA agreed that theoretically visa was the fellow’s responsibility. However, it was common
knowledge that it had become very difficult for fellows, in particular for fellows
from Africa, to obtain visas for European countries. Under such circumstances, the organization
was assisting to back up the fellows’ requests for visas with letters of endorsements.
It also sent letters of award to fellows six weeks prior to the starting date of the
fellowship programme in order to facilitate their visa application. Nonetheless, visas were
not issued until several months later. IAEA gave two concrete examples: An IAEA fellow
from Cameroon applied for a visa at the French Consulate in Yaounde. He called IAEA
and asked for a letter of assistance while he was waiting in line for 48 hours to reach the
desk of the Consulate. A study tour group from the Sudan got stranded in Cairo for three
weeks because visas were not issued on time. The questions that arose from such incidents
were: What to do with such fellows? Were they to be sent back home? Who would cover
the extra costs? And how would the fellows make up for the missed training? IAEA also
noticed that many fellows did not understand that the UN organizations had neither
legal grounds, nor the authority to intervene. But they could look for ways to facilitate
the issuance of visas to fellows. A case in point was the approach which IAEA had initiated
with the Italian Government. The former received advance confirmation from Rome
via the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations in Vienna that a given fellow
would be granted a visa to enter Italy as a fellow.
144. The Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) had been experiencing more
difficulties since September 2001 in the issuance of visas to international students. Negotiations
between CBIE and the relevant Ministries had almost ceased.
145. The representative of the British Council made a general remark that legislations in
the United Kingdom were constantly changing and new laws had to be interpreted.
Often, such laws were interpreted wrongly. According to him, Fellowships Officers
could play an important role as advisors to the legislation. In the United Kingdom a
new requirement stated that scholars doing doctoral and post-doctoral research had
to possess a work permit. The legislation also required that everyone working should
be paid an appropriate and fair salary. In the case of medical fellows it was difficult to
differentiate between, say, a surgeon fellow doing surgery to enhance his skills and a
regular surgeon.