Over 2 million refugees returned to their countries of origin in 1994, most notably to Mozambique, Afghanistan and Myanmar. Return movements have continued in 1995, with prospects also opening up for the large-scale return of some 300,000 refugees to Angola. Solutions have continued to be consolidated in several other regions, especially in Central America, where the process launched by the International Conference on Central American Refugees was brought formally to a close in June 1994 and a framework agreed for the post-Conference period, and in south-east Asia with the agreement of the Steering Committee of the International Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees to aim for the completion of activities under the comprehensive plan of action by the end of 1995.
Solutions to complex, refugee-producing emergencies require concerted efforts whereby humanitarian activities are complemented by both political initiatives to resolve conflict and development efforts to ensure a sustainable livelihood for the most severely affected areas and people.
In many areas of the world, UNHCR works increasingly closely with peace-keeping or peacemaking initiatives undertaken by the United Nations. It has continued to work with the United Nations peace-keeping operation in the former Yugoslavia where, as lead agency for the provision of humanitarian assistance, it has brought urgently needed assistance to over 2 million victims of war. Elsewhere, be it in Angola, Liberia, the Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa, Guatemala, the Caucasus or central Asia, it has worked either within the framework of or in tandem with United Nations efforts at conflict resolution.
In its search for solutions to the problems of refugees and other displaced persons of concern to it, UNHCR has also placed considerable emphasis on developing closer collaboration with regional bodies. A regional conference was hosted jointly by UNHCR and OAU at Bujumbura in February this year to ensure a concerted approach to the crisis in the Great Lakes region. Working relationships have also been enhanced with other regional bodies, as, for example, in Georgia, where UNHCR and OSCE cooperate closely on efforts to resolve the Abkhazia and South Ossetia conflicts. Similar collaboration has been taking place in Nagorny Karabakh and Chechnya.
UNHCR continues to attach great importance not only to conflict-resolution initiatives, but also to achieving a better interface between relief, rehabilitation and development. In the experience of the Office, the implementation of the concept of a continuum from relief to development should, on the one hand, enable humanitarian assistance to promote viable reintegration of displaced people into a process of social and economic recovery and, on the other, bring development endeavours closer to people-centred concerns and aspirations. Without this, solutions to humanitarian crises may regress into new, divisive communal problems.
UNHCR has thus continued to reinforce its community-based approach to reintegration assistance through the implementation of quick impact projects and has pursued discussions with other departments and agencies, notably the Department of Humanitarian Affairs and UNDP, on how institutional gaps can be bridged to ensure a meaningful continuum from relief to development. It has also sought to strengthen its relationship with the financial institutions, notably the World Bank. UNHCR efforts to support reconciliation and rehabilitation in post-conflict societies have been evident in the case of Mozambique, where its strategy for the reintegration of the 1.6 million refugees who have returned since the signing of the Peace Agreement aims, with the endorsement of the Government and major donors, at establishing linkages to longer-term development programmes.
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