ReliefWeb

Bonn, 30 March 2000 -- The Bonn-based United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) is expanding its work in Kosovo by recruiting and fielding an additional 400 volunteer specialists to register the population and carry out other reconstruction tasks of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
Of these 400, 220 will register the population within Kosovo, and a further 73 will register Kosovars living outside the province such as in neighbouring Albania and Macedonia. With university qualifications in the fields of law, administration and social science, these registration supervisors will take up posts in support of the UN Mission's Registration Task Force, which was set up on 10 December 1999.

The other specialists will join the 225 UNV civil administration support officers attached to UNMIK's Civil Administration and Civil Affairs Department who had already taken up assignments by the end of March. These UNVs carry out a range of activities, such as creating employment, coordinating emergency assistance, securing transport, issuing legal documents and helping rehabilitate and maintain public services. They have also organized the reconstruction of homes to provide suitable shelter to Kosovars before winter set in.

By the end of May, there will be 700 UN Volunteers from more than 50 countries working with UNMIK in and around the province.

In addition, UN Volunteers work with several agencies in the field of humanitarian assistance and reconstruction. UNV's major partners in these activities are United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Project Services (UNOPS).

For more information, contact: information@unv.org.