MSF to cease operations

In a further sign of improvement in Tajikistan's humanitarian situation, the international health NGO Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) is to cease operations in the Central Asian republic from Monday. "We are pulling out because MSF works in emergency situations. Tajikistan has now reached a different stage in its transition, thereby requiring NGOs with a greater emphasis on development," the outgoing head of mission, Franke de Jonge, told IRIN in the capital, Dushanbe. Since 1997, the NGO has been an active player in the country following five years of civil war in the wake of the collapse of the former Soviet Union and Tajikistan's subsequent independence in 1991. Some 50,000 people were killed during the bloody conflict, which devastated the country's economy and left its social infrastructure in tatters. Tajikistan has been largely dependent on international humanitarian aid ever since. Initially, MSF Holland began its operations in the Rasht valley, some 300 km east of Dushanbe. The valley is a particularly poor area that suffered greatly during the civil war. "There were forces coming in from the eastern side of Tajikistan and government forces coming in from Dushanbe. The Rasht valley was one of the battlefields if you like," de Jonge explained. Health care, drug management, psychiatric care, and reproductive health had been the mainstays of the NGO’s operations, he said. "We have done this for seven years now and feel that Tajikistan has reached another stage, or phase if you like - and that is development." According to the veteran aid worker, everybody agreed that the emphasis should now be on development, and that a number of new NGOs willing to engage in the process were starting work in the republic. As part of the transition, MSF had already handed over its emergency type projects to groups like the Paris-based NGO ACTED and the UK-based health NGO Merlin. "They have taken over our programmes," de Jonge said. He went on to point out that whereas the government, which had worked closely with MSF over the past years, was now eager to take over much of the country’s health operations, this could prove problematic given that it was spending less than 1 percent of GDP on health. "The government needs a lot of international support to do this by themselves. That is our only worry," de Jonge emphasised. His comments came less than a week after the local launch of the UN's Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for Tajikistan for next year, a transitional appeal of sorts, seeking nearly US $54 million to address acute humanitarian concerns, while emphasising stronger development through capacity building - particularly at the central and regional levels. A major humanitarian fund-raising and common programming tool of the UN system in Tajikistan, along with other international partners, over the past three years the CAP has assisted the UN system in providing the country with $120 million worth of humanitarian assistance. To date, Tajikistan remains the most impoverished of the five Central Asian republics, with over 83 percent of its 6.5 million people living below the national poverty line. A World Bank Poverty Assessment in 2000 classified a full 17 percent of the country’s population as destitute.