May 31, 1996. Copyright, 1996, Graphic News. All rights reserved

GROWING PROBLEM OF REFUGEES
By Laura Spinney, Science Editor

LONDON, May 31, Graphic News- Delegates from the governments of countries within the former Soviet Union will meet under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva tomorrow to discuss the growing problem of refugees and internally displaced people in the region.
According to the 1996 World Disasters Report, published today by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, over 50 million people in the former Soviet Union live outside their titular republics. Over half of those are Russians living outside Russia in states that have recently gained independence on the basis of ethnic criteria. Conflicts throughout the region have uprooted large numbers of people who have found themselves in ethnic minorities, no longer welcome in their homelands.
The report predicts that the number of people on the move will more than double over the next ten years. In 1995, the number of refugees recorded rose slightly on the previous year, to 15 million. At the same time, it warns that money spent on relief and aid may start to fall from its peak of US$3.4 billion, having risen from US$400 million in 1980. Yet the UNHCR continues to be called upon to deal with international emergencies. Last year, 75 per cent of its funding was spent on large scale emergency assistance programmes Ð in the former Yugoslavia and to help Rwandan refugees, for example. A smaller proportion of its funds now goes towards helping individual refugee cases and asylum seekers.
The report calls on humanitarian aid organisations to increase their efficiency and raise their standards Ð especially the many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are under contract to donor bodies to provide Ôfront-lineÕ relief. Some NGOs have been accused of lack of accountability, poor professional standards and opportunism. ÔStandards, to scrutinise NGO activity, to promote the good and throw out the bad, are urgently needed,Õ says the report.
But according to Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, director of the Refugee Studies Programme at the International Development Centre, University of Oxford, not all the blame can be laid at the door of the NGOs: Ôwe should blame those responsible for the growing economic inequalities in the world, Õ she says. ÔThat includes multi-nationals and us, living at the standards that we do.Õ

Source: World Disasters Report 1996, Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford