Mr Simons
Mr Murray
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EIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51
1 5 JUN1979
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Fisfy 11/6.
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cc: Mr Morgan, UND
Mr Williamson 8.6
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VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
FURTHER UK CONTRIBUTION TO UNHCR FUNDS
1.
Mr Murray minuted on his copy of UKMIS Geneva Tel No 173 of
31 May that we should consult ODA a firm recommendation for example,
another £1 million contribution to UNHCR funds. Sir James Murray
has recommended that we should consider a UK contribution "at least
matching our previous ones".
2. I have discussed the background on our contributions to UNHCR with
United Nations Department and with United Nations Department (B) ODA.
Prior to the current UNHCR budget, British practice had been to contribute about 5.5% of the High Commissioner's general programme budget, and about 10% to his appeals for special operations which were mounted on an ad hoc basis to cope with temporary refugees situations. Because of the longer term nature of some special operations, in South East Asia and Southern Africa, these were subsumed in the UNHCR
general programme budget for 1979. At the UNHCR 's pledging Conference in November 1978 the UK pledged £3.5 million to the general programme, equivalent to approximately 8.5% of the then estimated budget of 877 million and about 8% of the revised budget of approximately
$88 million. The UNHCR has subsequently further revised the estimate
of the general programme budgetary requirement up to $115 million, and
ODA at official level prior to the Jakarta "Island Processing Centre"
(IPC) conference were considering a further contribution of £1.25 millio
to maintain HMG's level of percentage contribution to the programme.
They had also considered earmarking a further £250,000 towards the cost
of the IPC/Action on this further contribution stopped when it was decided
PC
that our attitude to the proposal should depend at least in part on ASEAN's willingness to extend its facilities to refugees in Hong Kong, and that no announcement of a further commitment would be made at
Jakarta.
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