TNAG-0975-FCO40-1194-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-in-other--1980 — Page 59

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career development and promotion) are inadequate to meet the needs of a large organisation, in which over half the staff have been recruited in the last four years; the decision-making process is elementary and antiquated. It takes too long to gird itself up to cope with new refugee situations. In all these respects UNHCR has much to learn from ICRC. UNHCR is non-operational and it must always rely on partners (voluntary agencies, the ICRC and ICEM*) to carry out the donkey work. There are UNHCR representatives in some 63 countries.

FOOTNOTE

*

The Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration often acts as an operating agency for UNHCR and since its establishment in 1952 has transported for permanent settlement 24 million people of whom 12 million were refugees. They have been responsible for moving most of the Indo-Chinese refugees and in the first seven months of 1980 moved 185,000 people. The UK withdrew from membership in the late 1960s but remains an observer at ICEM Council meetings.