19 October 2000

BONN: The Executive Coordinator of the Bonn-based United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV), Sharon Capeling-Alakija, visits East Timor from 22-26 October during which time she will meet senior UN officials and discuss security conditions for the more than 400 UN Volunteers working in the territory. Ms. Capeling-Alakija will also visit UN Volunteers working in the districts of Manatutu, Baccau, Venilale, Suai, Same as well as in the provincial capital of Dili.

On 25 October, Ms. Capeling-Alakija and Jean-Christian Cady, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, will co-chair a high-level working group meeting on UNV staffing within the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). Numerous senior UN officials in East Timor will take part in the discussions.

The Executive Coordinator will also close a two-day security awareness workshop organized by UNV and the United Nations Security Coordinator (UNSECOORD) for regional security officers and UNV regional representatives. Participants will return to their regions where they will brief all UNTAET staff members.

There are currently 406 UN Volunteers working in more than 40 departments of UNTAET in some 150 different professional functions. About 70 per cent of these are working in a range of activities, including agriculture, human rights, social affairs and public administration. The balance works in administrative and technical support to the UN mission. Thirty-one UNV specialists are currently assisting other UN agencies, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP) with humanitarian relief operations. The 437 UN Volunteers in total represent 85 nationalities. The average age is 38, and just over 30 per cent are women.

An additional 332 UNV will be fielded over the next five months as civil registration and electoral officers.

UN Volunteers have been active in East Timor since June 1999. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) requested UNV to mobilize a large contingent of UN Volunteers to assist in last year's popular consultation process in East Timor under the newly established United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET). Five hundred UNVs (481 district electoral officers, or DEOs, and 19 doctors and nurses) were recruited from 73 countries and deployed in a record six-week period of time. Among the 500 UN Volunteers who served with UNAMET, the DEOs constituted the largest group of civilian international staff of UNAMET, serving at the district level, where they conducted civic education and organized and supervised the registration and polling processes for the ballot on 30 August 1999. Largely through the work of the UNV DEOs, a record 451,000 Timorese people were registered to vote. A record 98 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots.

Following civil unrest, all UN staff members, including the UN Volunteers, were evacuated from East Timor. However, about 100 UNVs stayed on at a military base in Darwin, Australia, initially assisting UNAMET with nearly 2,000 East Timor refugees who had been relocated there. This same group returned to East Timor in mid-October 1999 where they again played a front line role.

Since 1992, the UNV programme has recruited and fielded more than 4,000 UN Volunteers serving in 19 different peacekeeping operations. An independent panel of international experts recently urged UNDPKO to increase its use of UN Volunteers following eight years of "dedicated and competent" UNV performance in crisis zones around the world.

According to the recent Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, about 1,500 UN Volunteers have been assigned to new missions in East Timor, Kosovo and Sierra Leone in the last 18 months alone. They work in civil administration, electoral affairs, human rights and carry out administrative or support roles.