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A recent legal agreement between the Tanzanian government and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) marks the formalisation of a good bilateral relationship and should help ease the work of the Red Cross movement, especially in the refugee camps in western Tanzania, an ICRC spokesman, Florian Westphal, told IRIN on Thursday.
The "headquarters agreement" - signed by Tanzanian Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Jakaya Kikwete and ICRC Regional Delegate Vincent Nicod on 31 December - "regulates the entire relationship between the two parties, and formally recognises the international legal status of the ICRC as it operates in Tanzania," he said.
Having the new agreement would allow the ICRC to open a representative office in Dar es Salaam, making it easier to deal with government ministries and donors in Tanzania, would ease logistical and travel arrangements for the ICRC and save it customs duties on imported humanitarian goods, he added.
Kikwete pledged the Tanzanian government's total support for the ICRC exercising its mandate as an independent, neutral and impartial humanitarian institution, and said the agreement should help to strengthen the existing relationship between it and the Tanzanian Red Cross Society, with which it works closely.
The main impact will be on easing the ICRC's work with Congolese and Burundi refugees, to whom it offers a family message service and tries to organise family reunification - both within the camps in Tanzania and in their home countries, according to Westphal.
The ICRC also provides material support and expertise to hospitals and clinics dealing with war-wound patients, particularly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
The agreement will also enhance the ICRC's options in terms of logistics and support in the event of any disaster or humanitarian crisis arising in Tanzania or the Great Lakes region, according to Westphal.
Supplies in such instances are normally distributed from the organisation's regional logistics centre in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Among other areas, ICRC supports and works alongside the Tanzania Red Cross Society in improving conflict and disaster preparedness, and dissemination of information on human rights and international humanitarian law to the security forces, civil society groups and students.
After violent political clashes in the island chain of Zanzibar in late January 2001, ICRC organised for medical interventions and detainee visits on the main islands of Unguja and Pemba, as well as assistance to refugees who fled to the Kenyan coastal town of Shimoni.
In Zanzibar, the organisation is also supporting a rural water project.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
