International Eurasia Press Fund (IEPF) attended the Annual General Conference of the European Council on Refugee and Exiles (ECRE) together with the UNHCR-NGO Consultations that takes place on 16-18 October 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia. The Annual General Conference is organized by the Estonian Refugee Council (ERC) and ECRE. The main goal of this conference is to gather the representatives of different private and governmental structures to share own experience and come up with the initiatives to improve the work with migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) as well as to deepen the cooperation between the UNHCR and various NGOs in this particular issue.
The Conference started with the short speeches of the Raivo Küüt, Deputy Secretary General for Public Order and Migration Policy, Ministry of the Interior, Estonia, Pascale Moreau, Director of UNHCR's Europe Bureau and Catherine Woollard, ECRE Secretary General.
The International Eurasia Press Fund (IEPF) is the only NGO in the region having General Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC) and the single organization in Azerbaijan having membership in ECRE. This time, the organization is being represented by the Assistant to the IEPF President Anastasia Lavrina.
Work with refugees and IDPs is one of the key work directions for the IEPF. During the ECRE Annual General Conference, Anastasia Lavrina raised the issue about 1.2 million of refugees and IDPs appeared in Azerbaijan as a result of aggressive occupational policy of Armenia against Azerbaijan. Moreover, she spoke about a number of projects are being successfully implemented by the IEPF in the war-affected regions of Azerbaijan aimed at assisting to the suffering people. “The problems of the IDPs living in Azerbaijan should not be ignored by Europe and have to be related to the same agenda”, she added.
Further steps forward deepening cooperation between the European structures and IEPF in the work with refugees and IDPs have also been discussed.
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