OCHA Situation Report No. 34
Tajikistan
04 April 2003


Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

GENERAL

The month of March was marked by regular heavy snow falls and rains,
resulting in a number of small-scale incidental mudslides, floods and
avalanches in various parts of the country, especially in Khatlon and
GBAO. Access became a major issue in mountain areas, along with damage to
communication lines, dams and bank-enforcement structures, which are being
resolved by the MES and the local authorities.


Major political events and visits:

President of RT visited Belgium, Germany and participated in the
International Forum of Clean Water in Kyoto, Japan. Visits of the Russian
Foreign Minister, CIS Executive Secretary, the Personal Envoy for Central
Asia of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office for Central Asia Marti Ahtisaari,
Secretary-General of the Eurasian Economic Community Gregory Rapota.

The Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Bertrand Ramcharan,
visited Tajikistan in the beginning of March as part of his official visit
to countries in Central Asia to enhance dialogue and technical cooperation
between the governments of the region and the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, and in follow-up to the Secretary-General's
visit to the region in October 2002. In Dushanbe, the Deputy High
Commissioner met with the senior officials of the Government of
Tajikistan, representatives of civil society and local non-governmental
organizations and the members of the United Nations Country Team in
Tajikistan.

UNICEF Executive Board mission arrived in Tajikistan in the middle of
March to see how the current program from year 2000-2004 has expanded and
was moving forward. This was a timely visit as UNICEF and the Government
of Tajikistan are in the process of discussion and preparation of a new
country programme, which will be from 2005-2009. The program of the
mission also included the visits to the project sites, meeting with UNCT
and a number of government officials.

IFRC Secretary-General Didier Cherpitel visited Tajikistan in March to
meet with the President of Tajikistan and the Minister of Foreign Affairs
as well as to have field visits to the projects implemented by National
Red Crescent Society of Tajikistan.


Donors' missions:

EBRD, ECHO Brussels
ONGOING ACTIVITIES

Under the WFP project "Shelter Rehabilitation for houses effected by
landslide" in Yovon district, 16 houses damaged by recent landslide have
been rehabilitated and the food allocated for the project had been
distributed to the beneficiaries. WFP assisted victims of Landslide in
Chorvodor village of Jamoat "Ziraki" in Kulob district with 10.746 MT of
various food commodities.

A total quantity of 173.505 various food commodities including CSB were
distributed to 50 schools covered by WFP School Feeding project in Yovon
and Jirgitol districts, a total of 18,675 targeted-beneficiaries received
their food rations. Recipes translated in Tajik and Uzbek languages on how
to prepare meals from CSB were distributed among schools representatives
during food distribution. 73.636 MT of different food commodities were
distributed to the targeted-beneficiaries under FFW and FS projects in
Tojikobod, Rasht and Darband districts.

Under FFW project, a dam with the length of 310 meter and Water Supply
System (WSS) with the length of 4.5 km were constructed in Hijborak
village.

An exhibition of goods produced by WFP FFW project beneficiaries was
conducted on 7th of March 2003 in Kulob city in close co-operation with
local NGOs and authorities. Also, similar exhibition was organized in
Gharm centre by 140 women income generation beneficiaries. Up to 250
pieces of handicraft, cans and paintings were displayed.

FAO Tajikistan Animal Health Program continues to conduct seminars in the
line of the further development of the program in regions and districts of
the country. The series of seminars for local veterinarians were conducted
in Dushanbe, Tursunzade, Shakhrinav, Hissar, Leninskiy, Kurgan-tube,
Kulyab, Moskovskiy, Dangara, Kumsangir, Shaartuz and Yavan Districts.
During 1999-2003 FAO project "Development of self-sustaining animal health
and field support services in Tajikistan" has established, trained,
equipped and made operational 429 Veterinary Field Units all around the
country. They cover 58 % of Tajikistan total cattle population and 41 % of
total sheep and goats population.

Brucellosis Status, Brucellosis Epidemiology and Control were the main
issues of discussions of the 2-day workshop on Zoonotic Diseases. The
jointly organized Workshop by the Food and Agriculture Organization and
the Ministry of Agriculture was held on 27-28 of March with attendance of
30 local epidemiologists and ministry officers. The special attention of
participants was concentrated on epizootic situation and prevention of
Animal and Human Brucellosis in the country. Mr. Ward David, Senior
Officer, FAO Animal Service and Mr. Jackson Ronald, FAO Animal Health
Specialist attended the workshop.

250 books and FAO publications were presented to the Library of Agrarian
University and a small FAO corner has been opened at the University based
on FAO publications. Animal Health and Food Security, Plant Protection and
Agricultural Development, Forestry and Fishery, Alleviation of Poverty and
Hunger are the main topics of the presented publications. Now, FAO books
and publications will also circulate among students, lectures and other
readers of the Library of Agrarian University in Tajikistan.

At the request of the former Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. R. Hashimoto,
UNICEF agreed to co-organize a Children's World Water Forum, during the
Third World Water Forum in Kyoto in March (16-23 March). The purpose of
the forum is to raise awareness of the importance of safe water and
sanitation for children's health and well being. The objective of the
Children's World Water Forum is to help children and young people acquire
critical knowledge about water and sanitation issues and to facilitate the
exchange of ideas, experiences and lessons learnt; and to identify
decision making processes in the community and in the region where
children and young people's inputs can be strengthened. Therefore, from
Tajikistan Rano Rozikova and Saidmuhtar Amirov accompanied by UNICEF
National WES Project Officer Dr. Ikram Davronov participated in the
Children's Water forum in Kyoto.

During the children's water forum Children delegates from Tajikistan made
a presentation on the second theme, which is water and sanitation in the
school environment. As currently a Sanitation and hygiene promotion
project is under implementation in 200 schools of Khatlon and Sughd Oblast
in 12 Districts together with Ministry of Education.  This was the first
time that children's voice was being heard in such international
gathering.

As for the preparation to the World Child water Forum a pre forum was
conducted on 13th of March in Lokhuti theatre, Kurgan Tube where more then
3.500 students participated for the preparation works. This was an initial
step for a planned child water forum for Nationwide in Tajikistan, which
is proposed to be a parallel session to the International Water Forum that
Government of Tajikistan is planning to hold on early September 2003.

On 13 March a national pre-conference meeting on Children in Residential
Care in New Millennium in Khujand took place. The meeting had been
organized by National commission on Child protection and UNICEF with
collaboration with Sughd oblast authorities. The purpose of the meeting
was to encourage the discussion on the concept of de-institutionalization,
to discuss the importance of creating a national strategy for
de-institutionalization of children already in state institutions.  There
were 38 participants in this meeting whom represented local authorities,
international and local NGOs as well as staff members of the institution,
which has been selected for pilot project in Gafourof District of Sughd
Oblast.  The 2nd international conference on Children in Residential Care
in New Millennium will take place in Stockholm in collaboration with
University of Stockholm on 10-15 May 2003.  A delegation of 7 government
officials from Tajikistan with the support of UNICEF will participate in
this conference.

A regional malaria conference supported by USAID and the WHO regional
malaria office was conducted in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. It was attended by
representatives of groups active in malaria control in Tajikistan, namely
The Republican Tropical Disease Center, Sanitary Epidemiological Service
and NGOs Merlin and ACTED. Amongst the issues discussed was the recent
epidemic spread of malaria into areas of the Ferghana Valley covering
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

On 28 March 2003 a press conference devoted to the "Silk Road" Radio Soap
was conducted. Radio project is supported by the UNFPA, UNESCO, British
Department for International Development (DFID), and Swiss Cooperation
Office (SCO). The purpose of the project is to increase awareness of
population of remote districts on RH issues through radio dramas.
Representatives of Government, international and local NGOs, Mass Media
attended the press conference. In his speech Mr. Kahane, UNFPA
Representative welcomed the participants and expressed sincere gratitude
to representatives of UNESCO, DFID and SCO for sharing support of the
project. UNFPA Representative briefed participants on main activities of
the project, its direction, etc. Also, Mr. Kahane pointed out the
importance of the Radio project due to influence of the radio dramas on
population of remote districts. He mentioned that radio project has been
successfully functioning already for four years and due to its popularity
it was prolong.

Then the floor was given to Mr. Abdurashid Hudjamkulov, Director of
Tajikistan Radio. In his speech he underlined the existence of relevant
issues such as gender inequality, communicable diseases in our society and
its threat. And one of the solutions is the dissemination of the
information on such issues through radio. He briefed participants on the
activities undertaken by Tajikistan Radio in this direction. He thanked
the Internationals agencies for cooperation and SCO representative for
providing the recording equipment for releasing the radio dramas.
Afterwards, there was a role-play devoted to the problem of communicable
diseases acted out by the specially invited actors. It worth to say that
the role-play impressed the participants. The role-play proved that it is
rather better to see it then to hear it. Then the floor was given to
questions and answers where representative of mass media raised variety of
questions on the future of the project. One of them was the possibility of
playing the radio dramas on national TV.

"Peace, Creation, and Spring are Females" was the title of the art
exhibition opened in the Bekhzod National Museum on the occasion of
International Women's Day on March 5, 2003 by the initiative of UNIFEM and
under the auspices of the UN Country Team. The exhibition presents such
works as paintings (including ornamental and miniature painting),
tapestries, batik, rugs and needlework, prepared by students of Olimov Art
College as well as handicrafts from all over Tajikistan. The latter
include rugs, sewing products and needlework manufactured by local women's
NGOs or income-generating groups launched by UNDP, WFP and FAO.

 UN Human Development Report on Tajikistan for 2001-2002 with the theme
"Information and Communication Technologies for Development" was presented
in Dushanbe on 18 March 2003. Representatives from the government,
diplomatic missions and organizations present in Tajikistan, public
associations and media attended the presentation ceremony.



PLEDGES AND CONTRIBUTIONS

The Government of Germany allocated 6.6 million euros (7.2 million
dollars) in aid for Tajikistan for a development project in the east of
the country. The aid is destined for two mountainous areas near the
Central Asian republic's 1,340-kilometre (840-mile) border with
Afghanistan.

The Government of China provided Tajikistan with some food assistance
valued at 15 mln.yuans (2 mln. dollars). The 4,000 tons of food include
sugar, rice and soybean oil.

DIFD is planning to allocate $4.7 million (equivalent to 3 million pound
sterling) for development programs in Tajikistan for 2003.

Update on CAP 2003 (as of 2 April 2003)

|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|Appealin|Original|Revised |Contrib|Pledge|Carry| Total  | Unmet  |  %  |
|g Agency|Requirem|Requirem|utions |  s   |over |resource|Requirem|Cover|
|        |  ents  |  ents  |       |      |     |   s    |  ents  | ed  |
|        |        |        |       |      |     |availabl|        |     |
|        |        |        |       |      |     |   e    |        |     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|FAO     |2,274,40|2,274,40|      0|     0|    0|       0|2,274,40|0.00%|
|        |       0|       0|       |      |     |        |       0|     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|MCI     |1,625,84|1,625,84|      0|     0|    0|       0|1,625,84|0.00%|
|        |       5|       5|       |      |     |        |       5|     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|MERLIN  | 235,000| 235,000|      0|     0|    0|       0| 235,000|0.00%|
|        |        |        |       |      |     |        |        |     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|OCHA    | 471,556| 433,932|259,332|     0|    0| 259,332| 174,600|59.76|
|        |        |        |       |      |     |        |        |    %|
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|OCHA /  |1,218,64|1,218,64|      0|     0|    0|       0|1,218,64|0.00%|
|REACT   |       0|       0|       |      |     |        |       0|     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|OXFAM GB| 689,375| 689,375|      0|     0|    0|       0| 689,375|0.00%|
|        |        |        |       |      |     |        |        |     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|PSF - CI| 150,000| 150,000|      0|     0|    0|       0| 150,000|0.00%|
|        |        |        |       |      |     |        |        |     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|UNDP /  |2,150,00|2,150,00|      0|     0|    0|       0|2,150,00|0.00%|
|RRDP    |       0|       0|       |      |     |        |       0|     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|UNDP/   | 417,000| 417,000|      0|     0|    0|       0| 417,000|0.00%|
|UNSECOOR|        |        |       |      |     |        |        |     |
|D       |        |        |       |      |     |        |        |     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|UNHCR   |1,852,53|1,852,53|      0|     0|    0|       0|1,852,53|0.00%|
|        |       8|       8|       |      |     |        |       8|     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|UNICEF  |6,918,00|6,918,00|      0|     0|    0|       0|6,918,00|0.00%|
|        |       0|       0|       |      |     |        |       0|     |
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|WFP     |43,101,9|22,500,0|4,782,3|     0|    0|4,782,30|17,717,7|21.25|
|        |      55|      00|     00|      |     |       0|      00|    %|
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|WHO     | 902,000| 902,000|153,228|     0|    0| 153,228| 748,772|16.99|
|        |        |        |       |      |     |        |        |    %|
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|
|GRAND   |62,006,3|41,366,7|5,194,8|      |    0|5,194,86|36,171,8|12.56|
|TOTAL   |      09|      30|     60|      |     |       0|      70|    %|
|--------+--------+--------+-------+------+-----+--------+--------+-----|


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