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Europe and South East Asia since taking office on 1 January 1978.
He emphasised that UNHCR must seek permanent solutions through
voluntary repatriation or assimilation, and applauded Angola and
Zuire for their recent agreement on repatriation and request for
UNHCR assistance. UNHCR stood ready to help in Namibia. It had
an important role in coordinating assistance and repatriation at
the request of Bangladesh for the 200,000 refugees from Burma.
Consultative meetings in Geneva and elsewhere would be called to
discuss Indo-Chinese refugees, the first before the end of 1978.
Prior announcement of settlement quotas would assist long term
planning. There should be concerted efforts to help Argentinian
refugees.
4. On finance,
On finance, Mr Hartling announced that the increase in
UNHCR expenditure from all voluntary funds was minimal $111m
in 1977 to $110-$115m in 1978. Since his appeal in January the
situation had dramatically changed. The 1978 General Programme
was now fully financed and $55m had been provided for Special
Programmes. Indo-China would be included in the 1979 General
Programme which would amount to $87.5m. Frequent
Frequent appeals were
time-wasting and some Special Programmes had proved to be of an
on-going nature; the High Commissioner therefore urged that
governments should make increased contributions to his General
Programme. To help long term planning he proposed a system of
yearly estimates and suggested a figure of $360m to cover 1979-
81. He also drew attention to the costs to countries of first
asylum which should not be taken for granted.
5.
GR
Protection was a central concern of the High Commissioner
and he saw two main approaches increasing the number of states
parties to the Convention and Protocol and the development of
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/refugee
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