ADB, UNHCR meet to strengthen ties

The African Development Bank (ADB) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) met on Thursday to discuss ways on strengthening links between the two organisations, an ADB news release said. The one-day meeting, at the ADB headquarters in Cote d’Ivoire’s economic capital Abidjan, focused on improving cooperation in matters of reintegration of refugees as well as other conflict and post-conflict rehabilitation interventions, the release said. The agenda of the meeting, the first between the two institutions in thhe last three years, included a review of joint micro-financing schemes within their respective mandates, the status of implementation of the existing UNHCR-ADB cooperation agreement and possible future collaborations and a programme of action for 2001-2003. Discussions will be based on studies of operations of the two institutions in countries including Sierra Leone, Guinea, Zambia, Eritrea and the Great Lakes region. Since 1989 the UNHCR and the ADB have had a cooperation agreement with guidelines for their collaboration in areas including identification, appraisal, supervisional and post-evaluation of projects aimed at assisting refugees, displaced and repatriated persons in regional member countries, the ADB said.