08. Appendix 4 Options for organizing AI structures within the IS Underlag till styrelsemöte 1-2 maj 1997

APPENDIX 4: OPTIONS FOR ORGANIZATION AI STRUCTURES WITHIN THE IS
1.) Regional refugee information officers

Within the current structure of the IS there are five regional programs (Africa, Americas, Asia & Pacific, Europe, Middle East) each comprising several sub-regional teams. The teams combine research and campaigning. In addition, in each region there is a regional development team and regional campaign staff, normally attached to the Program Director's Office. One possible option would be to attach to the regional programs regional refugee information officers. These would be responsible to cover refugee issues on a regional basis and attend to queries relating to refugees from their respective region. Such a set-up would strengthen refugee work and provide the organizational basis to systematically deal with refugee' information needs and requests, in particular those relating to individual case work. Presently, dealing with refugee (case) work is not formally included in the portfolio of researchers and therefore left to sub-regional campaigners, some of which spend more than half of their time dealing with refugee-related information requests. While the installation of regional refugee information officers would involve an increase in staff and resources at the IS, it would also mean substantial savings in resources at the level of sub-regional teams. Such an approach may particularly assist those teams heavily overburdened with refugee-related information requests, set time free to attend to other tasks and contribute to a more even-handed distribution of work within the region. On the other hand, while regional refugee information officers may develop expertise in refugee work and the region, for some particular questions they may still have to turn to sub-regional teams for assistance. also, different regional refugee information officers may develop different approaches to their work, and a mechanism for coordination and streamlining would be needed. Finally, taking such a regionalized approach by attaching refugee information officers to the regions would deviate from the very idea of a refugee documentation centre as a centre. While this ~ may well solve some of the current problems, this organizational structure would hardly be compatible with the vision of a documentation centre as such.

2. Enlarged Refugee Team

The Refugee (and Relief) Team as part of the Research and Mandate Program presently consists of a Refugee Coordinator, an Assistant Coordinator and a Team Assistant. This team could be expanded to include one or several refugee information officers forming the refugee documentation centre. Under this option coordination among the documentation officers and with the Refugee Team should not be difficult and a high degree of consistency could be achieved. The team would be well positioned to address overall refugee policy questions, but less so regarding country-specific information.
A limited version of this option had been proposed in 1992 by the authors of the REVIEW
OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S RESEARCH (POL 40/01/92).
The report proposed: "One additional professional staff to be added to the refugee team is recommended with the understanding that the expanded team would deal with refugee and relief work for all regions. The team would also receive queries on refugee concerns from sections / co-groups and respond to them after obtaining the necessary information from the research team. In the future sections co-groups would be directing their queries not to the individual teams, but to the expanded refugee/relief unit."
This approach at that time was rejected as not feasible by the IS, which in comments to the research study dated 8 February 1993 (POL 40/01/93) stated inter alia: "The (report notes that research teams spend an increasing amount of time handling requests for information or comments from the sections on asylum claims. The IS recognizes the importance of the work the sections do in taking up individual cases of asylum-seekers and providing country of origin information to lawyers, decision-makers and others on their cases.
The (report proposes that to both maintain the work and lighten the burden on research teams, the IS Refugee Team should have another full-time member of staff to handle such inquiries. The IS does not believe this is a workable proposal because that person would still have to gather the information or comments from the research teams; they could not possibly be expected to develop up-to-the-minute country expertise on all countries that produce large numbers of refugees.
The IS in its further comments then welcomes the idea of an intermediate structure to handle such requests (the present idea for a refugee documentation centre.)

3.) Information Resources Program

Among many other tasks the Information Resources Program monitors international press and electronic news services. It also deals with both al and non-al information and aims to provide a high quality and comprehensive information service. A refugee documentation centre established with this program would be particularly well situated to cover general information aspects and the information technology and communications aspects related to its work. Country expertise in general and specific expertise in refugee work would have to be developed or obtained.