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In Brief
Appeal No. 05AA053; Programme Update no. 1, Period covered: 01 January to 30 April, 2005; Appeal coverage: 110%
Appeal target: CHF 915,443 (USD 762,551 or EUR 598,524)
Related Emergency or Annual Appeals: Southeast Asia regional appeal 05AA057, Timor-Leste Food Insecurity Minor Emergency 05ME017
Programme summary:
In spite of the socio-political context, the Timor-Leste Red Cross (Cruz Vermelha de Timor-Leste/CVTL) continued to implement activities in the areas of health and care, disaster management and organizational development. This progress has been largely facilitated through:
- Australian Red Cross funding for health and care, and organization development; the British government's Department for International Development (DFID) grants (through British Red Cross) for health and care, organizational development and field management; Japanese Red Cross and funding for the health delegate; New Zealand Red Cross funding for organization development; Norwegian Red Cross funding for field management, disaster management, health and organization management, South Korean Red Cross funding for health and care;
- Federation's Capacity Building Fund grant for organizational development;
- ICRC funding for the Red Cross statutes, and continuous support to CVTL in tracing, dissemination and organization development;
- bilateral programmes: Australian and Austrian Red Cross (water and sanitation, and community-based disaster preparedness), Japanese Red Cross (health), Spanish Red Cross (branch office reconstruction), WHO (medicine distribution), Family Health International (HIV/AIDS), CWSSP (water and sanitation), IOM (water and sanitation and community-based first aid).
A significant portion of health funding will go beyond 2005, thus putting the appeal coverage to over 100%. Donor support, however, is still needed particularly in organizational development.
Operational developments
Heeding a request from the Timor-Leste government, the United Nations (UN) Security Council recently mandated a special political mission, United Nations Office in Timor-Leste (UNOTIL) to replace the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) and help consolidate the country's development towards self reliance for a period of one year, ending 20 May 2006. Assistance will aim at strengthening rule of law, including justice, human rights, the Timor-Leste police and public administration. Indicated staffing is up to 45 civilian advisors; 40 police advisors, and 35 advisors to bolster the Border Patrol Unit (BPU) - ten of whom may be military advisors. Up to ten additional officers will provide training in observance of democratic governance and human rights. The council encouraged the UN secretary-general's special representative to establish and chair a consultative group, made up of bilateral and multilateral donors, regional mechanisms, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private sector organizations and others, that would meet regularly.
The Indonesian president visited Timor-Leste in March and the relationship between the countries is developing positively. The two governments have agreed to the establishment of a friendship and reconciliation commission, a plan that has faced criticism in Timor-Leste, as some fear it might exclude justice. The security council has acknowledged the secretary-general's decision to send a commission of experts to Timor-Leste and Indonesia to review the serious crimes accountability processes, and reaffirmed the need for credible accountability for serious human rights violations committed in 1999.
A serious stand-off between the government and the Catholic church brought several thousand demonstrators to Dili for more than two weeks in April and May. The conflict, initially about religion in school, escalated to incidents of violence and calls from the church for the prime minister to step down. Eventually a deal was struck and an agreement signed on several ethical/legal issues, including religion curricula in school, ban of prostitution, and criminalization of abortion (unless the mother's life is threatened). The Federation's operations in the country were temporarily interrupted by the standoff, due to special security measures.
There has been a breakthrough in negotiations between Timor-Leste and Australia on the use of gas and oil resources in the sea, and the Timorese minister of foreign affairs has issued a press release stating that an early agreement is expected. A settlement on maritime boundary will be deferred to the future but the parties have agreed on a sharing of the main gas/oil field, Sunrise, with a substantially increased share to Timor-Leste. Early seismic tests in sea areas, undisputedly belonging to Timor-Leste, show promising indications of gas/oil. There are also positive indications on the island itself. More advanced seismic tests are to follow.
During this period CVTL completed and approved its first total annual budget. The society sent water and sanitation staff to Indonesia to assess a tsunami-related reconstruction project in support of its sister society, the Indonesian Red Cross (Palang Merah Indonesia/PMI), an effort that was appreciated by the government and caught media attention in Timor-Leste.
The appeal budget for 2005 appears slightly over-funded, mainly due to a two-year contribution granted in 2005 for the health programmes. The health and disaster management programmes for 2005 are expected to be fully funded but additional donor support is needed for the organizational development programme.
For further information specifically related to this operation please contact:
In Timor-Leste: Francisco Ximenes, Secretary-General, Cruz Vermelha de Timor-Leste; email: sec-gen@cvtl.tp; Phone: +67.07.24.8963; Fax: +67.03.32.1688
In Timor-Leste: Olav Ofstad, Head of Delegation; email: ifrc_east_timor01@ifrc.org; Phone: +67.07.23.1434; Fax: +67.03.32.2010
In Bangkok: Bekele Geleta, Head of Regional Delegation; email: ifrcth23@ifrc.org; Phone: +66.2.640.8211, Fax: +66.2.640.8220
In Geneva: Charles Evans or Sabine Feuglet, Southeast Asia Desk Officer, Asia Pacific Department; email: charles.evans@ifrc.org or sabine.feuglet@ifrc.org; Phone: +41.22.730.4320/4349; Fax: +41.22.733.0395
This Programme Update reflects activities to be implemented over a one-year period. This forms part of, and is based on, longer-term, multi-year planning (refer below to access the detailed logframe documents). All International Federation assistance seeks to adhere to the Code of Conduct and is committed to the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response in delivering assistance to the most vulnerable. For support to or for further information concerning Federation programmes or operations in this or other countries, or for a full description of the national society profile, please access the Federation's website at http://www.ifrc.org
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