This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 AMMAN 005484 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT. FOR PRM AND NEA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PREL IZ LE JO
SUBJECT: MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF ICMC PROGRAMS FOR 
VULNERABLE IRAQIS IN JORDAN AND LEBANON 
 
REF: A. A) EXUM/KANESHIRO E-MAIL 06/27/05 
     ¶B. B) 03 AMMAN 1587 
 
¶1. (U) Following is a monitoring and evaluation report for 
PRM cooperative agreements SPRMCO04CA150 and SPRMCO04CA140 
with the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), 
designed to secure medical care, primary and 
non-formal/vocational education and basic humanitarian aid 
for extremely vulnerable Iraqis (EVIs) residing in Jordan and 
Lebanon under UNHCR's temporary protection regime.  These 
agreements, totaling USD 935,518 for Jordan-based activities 
and USD 516,515 for Lebanon, maintain PRM-funded programs 
that ICMC has been implementing in partnership with Caritas 
International's Migrants Center in Lebanon and Caritas' 
National Association in Jordan since September 2002. 
 
------- 
SOURCES 
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¶2. (U) Amman-based regional refcoord reviewed implementation 
of these two EVI programs with ICMC's Jordan and Lebanon 
representatives, senior Caritas managers and local-hire EVI 
project officers three times each between September 2004 and 
July 2005: 
 
-- Accompanied by PRM/ANE's visiting Iraq Program Officer, 
refcoord met ICMC Jordan Representative Suzana Paklar on 
February 28 at offices ICMC/Caritas Jordan specifically 
established in downtown Amman to house its EVI program. 
 
-- Refcoord also met Paklar and ICMC Lebanon 
Representative/overall ICMC EVI Program Coordinator Jim Kelly 
jointly in Amman on April 28. 
 
-- Finally, refcoord met Kelly, EVI Lebanon Project Officer 
Isabelle Saade and Najla Tabet Chahda, the Director of the 
Caritas Lebanon Migrants Center on June 24.  (The Center, 
established in Beirut in 1994, now houses the EVI program.) 
 
¶3. (U) In addition to these meetings, refcoord observed EVI 
project caseworkers screening prospective beneficiaries at 
ICMC/Caritas offices, and reviewed EVI project databases, in 
Amman on March 20 and in Lebanon June 24.  She also 
accompanied ICMC/Caritas Jordan caseworker Gaby Daw on eight 
home visits to beneficiaries living in seven different 
neighborhoods in Amman on March 20, and also observed three 
home visits that ICMC/Caritas Lebanon EVI Project Officer 
Saade and caseworker Mirelle Chekrallah made to existing and 
prospective beneficiaries living in the Fanar District of 
Beirut on June 24.  Because security conditions prohibit 
refcoord from accompanying caseworkers to West Beirut 
neighborhoods, ICMC/Caritas caseworkers Laurette Challita and 
Majida El Joubeily videotaped three beneficiary families 
living inside an UNRWA-run camp for Palestinian refugees and 
surrounding West Beirut neighborhoods in June.  (NOTE: This 
video, along with EVI project data, has been pouched to 
PRM/ANE, per ref A instructions.  END NOTE.)  Refcoord also 
discussed how ICMC's EVI programming complements UNHCR aid 
with UNHCR's Acting Jordan Head of Mission James Lynch and 
UNHCR's Senior Regional Durable Solutions Officer for 
Lebanon, Mohammed Hantosh, July 5. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
OVERALL OPERATING ENVIRONMENT AND PERFORMANCE 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Cooperative agreements SPRMCO04CA150 and 
SPRMCO04CA140 call for ICMC to identify and assist the most 
vulnerable Iraqi asylum seekers in Jordan and Lebanon -- a 
population that UNHCR, government sources and NGOs currently 
estimate to number between 300,000-400,000 in Jordan and 
20,000-25,000 in Lebanon.  Although UNHCR placed all new 
Iraqi asylum seekers under a temporary protection (TP) regime 
in March 2003, comparatively few have registered for TP 
status (15,000 in Jordan and 1,000 in Lebanon) due to the 
limited assistance UNHCR's community service units in Amman 
and Beirut can offer (see para. 9) and pervasive fears that 
registering with UNHCR will actually facilitate deportation. 
(COMMENT: These concerns may be credible in Lebanon as 
UNHCR's September 2003 MOU with the GOL permits Lebanese 
authorities to access UNHCR case files.  END COMMENT.) 
 
¶5. (SBU) ICMC/Caritas' target caseload continued to face 
serious protection issues as a result of their quasi-legal 
status, which forces them to live on the fringes of Lebanese 
and Jordanian society (for example, most beneficiaries live 
in unhygienic unheated and often unsafe housing never 
designed for human habitation and work illegally as 
construction workers, maids and street vendors where 
unscrupulous employers often withhold their wages through 
threats of deportation).  In addition, the attitudes of host 
authorities in Jordan also hardened this year, limiting 
ICMC's access to government schools for the first time.  As 
para. 19 reports in greater detail, Jordanian authorities 
expelled Iraqi children whose families do not possess a 
one-year temporary residence permit from government schools 
in late 2004, and are currently pressing UNHCR to refrain 
from renewing temporary protection ID cards, which have a 
validity of six months, and to limit the validity of any new 
cards UNHCR issues to one month. 
 
¶6. (SBU) ICMC program managers are reacting to this changing 
operating environment, and are also modifying their EVI 
implementing mechanisms to compensate for two other problems 
affecting their targeting: the potential for old 
beneficiaries to dominate assistance programs and the limited 
local capacity of implementing partners in Jordan, where only 
one university offers a degree in social work.  In general, 
ICMC/Caritas has done a solid job of overcoming these issues 
and has met, or is on target to meet, all but one of the 
three core objectives outlined in its cooperative agreements: 
improve living conditions, improve access to comprehensive 
medical care and improve access to primary education.  The 
exception is the Jordan EVI program's outpatient medical 
care, which has reached only 40% of its target due to a 
strict vetting procedure that Caritas introduced in late 2004 
that limited outpatient services to procedures costing under 
USD 30 per service.  ICMC representatives discovered the low 
outpatient approval rate when it stood up Jordan EVI 
program's first project database five months into the program 
and have asked Caritas to relax its guidelines.  However, 
they believe widespread familiarity with the earlier cutoff 
is still suppressing demand within the Iraqi community, and 
advise that they are unlikely to meet their original Jordan 
outpatient target by August 31. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
ACCESS, CRITERIA AND COORDINATION WITH OTHER PROVIDERS 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Because of their target population's irregular 
status, ICMC/Caritas continues to find it impossible to 
conduct outreach through media or other official means.  Most 
beneficiaries are old clientele from the first two years of 
this program (22% in Jordan and 60% in Lebanon) or new 
arrivals who find the EVI program through word of mouth or 
informal referrals from UNHCR's community service program 
staff.  ICMC/Caritas program staff report that new arrivals 
in Jordan and Lebanon are arriving with virtually no 
possessions, unlike the previous two years of the program. 
Prospective beneficiaries that refcoord observed in the Fanar 
District of Beirut, for example, appeared to have fled Iraq 
quickly after family members were the victims of kidnapping 
or targeted attacks in Baghdad and Mosul.  However, the 
Jordan program has also seen an increase in "medical 
tourists."  As in previous years, EVI program caseworkers in 
Lebanon and Jordan use a combination of interviews and home 
visits -- documented using standard assessment forms -- to 
determine the eligibility of clients.  The majority of 
prospective beneficiaries walk into ICMC/Caritas program 
offices in Amman and Beirut but caseworkers also travel 
approximately one day a month to assess the eligibility of 
Iraqis living in other locations in Jordan and Lebanon. 
 
¶8. (SBU) ICMC/Caritas staff continue to use the same nine 
vulnerability criteria as in previous years (i.e. mental 
disability/trauma, physical disability, chronic, acute or 
terminal medical conditions, single parent or female head of 
households, unaccompanied elderly or minors, elderly adults 
in need of specialized care, families with children or 
elderly in extreme poverty, female or child victims of 
violence and persons with special protection concerns such as 
ethnic minorities) but started excluding single males and 
limiting their aid to new beneficiaries after discovering 
that it had already achieved an extremely high rate of client 
identification amongst its old caseload in the first four 
months of its programming.  For example, the Lebanon program 
had identified 60% of its 500 family target by December.  To 
ensure it maintained a balance between its old caseload and 
new applicants, the Jordan EVI program  established its first 
comprehensive database for its EVI caseload in February.  In 
general, the majority of Lebanese cases are families in 
poverty or with chronic/terminal medical conditions.  Jordan 
has seen an increase in the number of female-headed 
households, as they lose contact with male relatives who are 
spontaneously returning to Iraq.   Despite a significant 
increase in the number of Christian families arriving in 
Lebanon and Jordan, a trend also observed by UNHCR, 
ICMC/Caritas staff continue to do a good job targeting all 
religious communities.   As reported by ICMC, its caseload is 
59% Muslim and 41% Christian in Lebanon and 42% Muslim, 42% 
Christian and 16% Sabian in Jordan. 
¶9. (SBU)  Because the needs of these vulnerable communities 
are so great (ICMC estimates that at least 15,000 persons 
would fit its criteria for vulnerability in Jordan), overlap 
is not an issue.  UNHCR's community service offices do 
not/not provide aid to Iraqis in temporary protection status 
in Lebanon.  UNHCR does operate a USD 706,800 aid program for 
vulnerable Iraqis in temporary protection status in Jordan, 
working with four NGOs, including Caritas Jordan, to provide 
financial/in-kind aid and medical, education, and legal 
services, but its 2005-year caseload numbers less than 100 
persons.  UNHCR community service staff report that they do 
informally refer Iraqis to ICMC/Caritas' EVI programs. 
However, there is no coordination/communication between 
senior ICMC program managers and UNHCR management, despite 
the fact that UNHCR is currently considering increasing the 
aid it provides to Iraqis in temporary protection status. 
UNHCR Jordan's Acting Head of Mission readily admits that 
this lack of coordination is due to the fact that UNHCR was 
"overly focused on its border camp population," and has 
offered to include ICMC staff in its urban Iraqi refugee 
committee meetings. 
 
------------------------------- 
SPECIFIC PEFFORMANCE INDICATORS 
------------------------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) JORDAN EVI PROJECT: ICMC planned to assist 3,400 
individuals/families in Jordan in its third-year of EVI 
programming.  In its first nine months of operations 
(September 1, 2004-May 31, 2005), ICMC/Caritas reviewed 2,684 
applications, primarily from Iraqis in Amman and nearby 
cities. (NOTE: A small number of applicants are also residing 
in Irbid, Jordan's second largest city, in the north. END 
NOTE.).  Of these, ICMC/Caritas accepted 1,962 cases, 
rejected 295 cases and closed 217 cases involving 
beneficiaries who could not be located following initial 
screening.  One hundred seventy nine applications were 
pending.  Jordan Caritas program managers estimate that 22% 
of its current caseload (1,962) also received assistance in 
the first two years of this program.  However, ICMC country 
representatives caution that this figure may be suspect, 
given that ICMC/Caritas Jordan just established its first 
comprehensive EVI database for its Jordan caseload in 
February. 
 
OBJECTIVE A - IMPROVE ACCESS TO COMPREHENSIVE MEDICAL CARE 
============================================= ============= 
 
INDICATOR 1 - OUTPATIENT MEDICAL CARE:  As of June 1, 
ICMC/Caritas had secured outpatient medical services, 
including general and specialist physician consultations, 
vaccinations, lab exams, medicine supply, x-rays and other 
medical scans for 798 vulnerable Iraqis -- 40% of its 
original target to provide outpatient services to 2,000 
persons by August 31, 2005.  ICMC Representative Kelly told 
refcoord July 2, that he does not believe ICMC/Caritas Jordan 
will meet its original target due to lower than anticipated 
demand.  As outlined in para. 5, demand may be suppressed by 
the fact that EVI program managers were strictly limiting 
outpatient services to procedures that cost USD 30 or less in 
the first five months of the program. 
 
INDICATOR 2 - INPATIENT MEDICAL CARE: ICMC/Caritas provided 
inpatient services to 449 Iraqis at a combination of 
government and private hospitals by June 1, which was 90% of 
its target to assist 500 EVIs by August 31, 2005. 
 
OBJECTIVE B - IMPROVE LIVING CONDITIONS 
======================================= 
 
INDICATOR 1 - HUMANITARIAN AID: Using a voucher system with 
local shopkeepers, ICMC/Caritas provided tailored aid 
packages consisting of food, hygienic kits, pest control kits 
and equipment to support vocational training, such as sewing 
machines, to 739 Iraqi individuals/families by June 1, 
exceeding its original target to provide 500 packages by 
August 31, 2005. 
 
OBJECTIVE C - IMPROVE ACCESS TO EDUCATION 
========================================= 
 
INDICATOR 1 - PRIMARY SCHOOL ACCREDITATION:  ICMC/Caritas 
exceeded its target to enroll 300 children in accredited 
primary schools by August 31.  As of June 1, it had provided 
tuition/assisted enrollment for 319 children. 
 
INDICATOR 2 - NON-FORMAL EDUCATION:  ICMC/Caritas also 
exceeded its target to secure non-formal primary education 
for 100 children by August 31.  As of June 1, it had assisted 
117 children. 
 
¶11. (SBU) LEBANON EVI PROJECT:  ICMC estimated it would 
assist 500 families (approximately 2,500 individuals) in its 
third-year of EVI programming in Lebanon.  Between September 
1, 2004 and June 21, 2005 it reviewed applications from 580 
families, primarily in Beirut, with a limited secondary 
caseload in the south.  Of these, it accepted 460 families, 
with an average household size of 3.6 family members.  The 
majority qualified for assistance because they had children 
living in extreme poverty (287 cases) or family members with 
chronic or terminal medical conditions (141).  Twenty-four 
cases were pending as of June 6.  ICMC/Caritas EVI program 
managers estimate that 60% of its current caseload received 
assistance in the first two years of this program, despite 
concerted efforts to limit assistance to new arrivals after 
the first four months of programming. 
 
OBJECTIVE A -- IMPROVE ACCESS TO COMPREHENSIVE MEDICAL CARE 
============================================= ============== 
 
INDICATOR 1 - OUTPATIENT MEDICAL CARE:  As of June 6, 
ICMC/Caritas had reached 93% of its target to provide 
outpatient care to 700 Iraqis by August 31.  It had provided 
outpatient medical care (general and specialist physician 
consultations, vaccinations, lab exams, medicine supply, 
x-rays and other medical scans) at a combination of 
government and private hospitals, medical centers, labs and 
pharmacies to 613 individuals.  Another 39 individuals had 
been approved for treatment. 
 
INDICATOR 2 - INPATIENT MEDICAL CARE: As of June 6, 
ICMC/Caritas had achieved 73% of its target to provide 
inpatient care to 150 EVIs by August 31, 2005.   Eighty one 
beneficiaries received inpatient medical care in government 
hospitals, with the exception of maternity care, which was 
provided at a private hospital in Beirut at a reduced price 
due to the fact that the maternity unit at ICMC's main 
government hospital contractor was closed for renovations. 
An additional 29 individuals had been approved and were 
awaiting treatment. 
 
OBJECTIVE B -- IMPROVE LIVING CONDITIONS 
======================================== 
 
INDICATOR 1 - HUMANITARIAN AID: ICMC/Caritas has exceeded its 
target to provide 250 EVIs receive tailored humanitarian 
packages by August 31, 2005.  As of June 6 it had delivered 
packages to 257 families that included mattresses and 
blankets, food, clothes and diapers and/or had secured 
alternative housing for families living in dangerous 
conditions.  An additional eight families had been approved 
and were awaiting delivery of services. 
 
OBJECTIVE C -- IMPROVE ACCESS TO EDUCATION 
========================================== 
 
INDICATOR 1 - PRIMARY SCHOOL ACCREDITATION:  ICMC/Caritas has 
also exceeded its target to enroll 200 children in accredited 
primary schools by August 31, 2005.  One hundred eighty-six 
students had received tuition/enrollment aid as of June 6 an 
additional 23 students had been approved and were awaiting 
this aid. 
 
INDICATOR 2 - NON-FORMAL EDUCATION:  ICMC/Caritas also 
exceeded its target to secure non-formal primary education 
for 150 children by August 31, 2005.  One hundred sixty-nine 
children had been enrolled in courses, primarily to provide 
remedial French and English-language instruction to children 
to ensure they can participate in accredited schools in 
Lebanon that teach a compulsory curricula in a combination of 
French, Arabic and English, by June 6. 
 
ADDITIONAL INDICATORS 
===================== 
 
ICMC/Caritas also exceeded its target to provide two 
additional services to EVIs in Lebanon.  It originally 
planned to provide vocational training to 50 young adults and 
to offer seminars on health and social issues for 60 Iraqi 
women.  By June 6, it had provided English language and/or 
vocational training (data processing, accounting, nail care, 
cellular phone repair) to 53 individuals, and had approved 
training for an additional 21.  ICMC/Caritas has overcome the 
initial delays starting up its women's seminars that it 
reported in its interim narrative report.  Sixty-eight women 
had participated in EVI seminars as of June 6. 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
STAFFING, WORKPLACE CONDITIONS AND INVENTORY 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) MANAGEMENT: ICMC oversight has been excellent.  Jim 
Kelly, ICMC's Lebanon country representative/overall EVI 
program coordinator is overseeing several projects in 
Lebanon, but never at the expense of this program.  He briefs 
ICMC Geneva on EVI programming on a weekly basis and 
maintains frequent and regular contact with ICMC's Jordan 
country representative.  Both country representatives have 
been responsive to requests for information, and have been 
open to refcoord's suggestions that ICMC establish contact 
with UNHCR's heads of mission in Jordan and Lebanon given 
that UNHCR is contemplating increasing the assistance it 
provides to vulnerable Iraqi asylum seekers in the region. 
Program implementation and day-to-day management is carried 
out jointly by ICMC's country representative, the Director of 
Caritas' Lebanon Migrant Center, who has 18 years of 
experience with Caritas, and an EVI Project Officer, 
recruited jointly by ICMC/Caritas two years ago.   Day-to-day 
program management in Jordan is carried out jointly by ICMC's 
country representative and an EVI program manager hired by 
Caritas.  This manager resigned in mid-2004, and was replaced 
in late 2004. 
 
¶13. (SBU) STAFFING: ICMC/Caritas currently have six full-time 
staff working on the EVI project in Lebanon (three 
caseworkers, one administrative assistant, one receptionist 
and one accountant) and eight in Jordan (seven caseworkers 
and one secretary).  (NOTE: EVI project staff also receive 
regular support from interns who are pursuing social worker 
degrees.  A graduate student also assisted Jordan's EVI 
project team to establish its first comprehensive database, 
utilizing the Lebanon EVI database as a model. END NOTE.) 
All appeared fully and gainfully employed during refcoord's 
monitoring visits.  EVI project staff work six days a week in 
both fields.  Caseworkers spend one day per week on required 
paperwork, and divide their remaining days interviewing 
potential beneficiaries in Caritas' offices and conducting 
follow-up visits to prospective and current beneficiaries' 
homes, schools and hospitals.  EVI caseworkers in Lebanon are 
highly qualified; all hold professional social worker 
degrees, and are active in securing discounts from shops for 
their clientele.  Some have personally worked to pool funding 
from UNHCR and local NGOs to pay for expensive operations 
such as open-heart surgery that ICMC program funds cannot 
cover.  EVI caseworkers in Jordan appeared hard-working and 
have earned the trust of beneficiaries (an important 
attribute given their quasi-legal status) but they are 
unquestionably overstreteched.  During refcoord's home 
visits, EVI caseworkers averaged less than 10 minutes with 
each beneficiary, as opposed to 30 minutes in Lebanon.  The 
tension associated with reviewing the high number of 
applicants and modest pay has resulted in high caseworker 
turnover in both fields.  ICMC admits its staffing levels are 
inadequate; they would like to hire one additional caseworker 
in each of its EVI fields if PRM continues to fund its EVI 
programs. 
 
¶14. (U)  OFFICES AND EQUIPMENT: ICMC/Caritas' EVI program 
offices in Lebanon are located within the Caritas Lebanon 
Migrant Center, a clearly signposted center that Caritas 
established in 1994 to serve refugees and migrant workers, 
primarily from Africa and Asia.  Office equipment provided 
under previous PRM agreements (desks, laser printers, 
switchboard) were in use and ICMC/Caritas managers readily 
provided an equipment inventory.  In Jordan, ICMC/Caritas 
Jordan is continuing to rent commercial office space in 
downtown Amman to operate its EVI programs, which may be 
inadequate for its current caseload.  ICMC/Caritas' 
receptionist, for example, shares her work space with waiting 
applicants, which spill out onto the adjacent stairwell. 
Caseworkers conduct beneficiary interviews in one single 
room.  Signage could also be improved.  PRM-funded equipment 
(file cabinets, phones) is in good working order. 
 
¶15. (SBU) FINANCIAL CONTROLS: Caritas Lebanon and Jordan both 
maintain appropriate financial reporting and inventory 
controls.  In addition to visiting hospital inpatients, 
caseworkers now regularly inspect the gradebooks of primary 
students they are assisting to counter a fraud problem the 
program faced in its first two years, when some school 
administrators were colluding with parents to share the cost 
of tuition without actually enrolling children. 
 
¶16. (SBU) SECURITY PROTOCOL:  ICMC/Caritas Jordan caseworkers 
continue to operate in pairs which are always comprised of a 
male and female caseworker.  In Lebanon, security protocols 
appear more lax.  Caseworkers often conduct home visits on 
their own, even in UNRWA-run refugee camps.  However, no 
security incidents have occurred to date and caseworkers told 
visiting refcoord that they have never felt at risk. 
 
------------------------------------- 
SPHERE STANDARDS AND CODES OF CONDUCT 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶17. (U) ICMC/Caritas' EVI programs in Jordan and Lebanon are 
addressing sub-standard housing conditions for urban Iraqi 
asylum seekers, but project managers are not using SPHERE 
standards directly to design and evaluate these programs. 
ICMC/Caritas' EVI program staff seemed aware of ICMC's Code 
of Conduct and established reporting procedures. 
 
---------------------- 
PROJECT SUSTAINABILITY 
---------------------- 
 
¶18. (SBU) Caritas' Lebanon Migrants Center currently has the 
technical capacity to maintain ICMC's EVI programs: it has a 
strong management team and a staff of professionally-trained 
social workers.  Caritas' Migrant Center has also developed a 
positive working relationship with Lebanese authorities, even 
securing GOL agreement to establish a Caritas office within 
the GOL's main Beirut detention center as a condition of 
Caritas' agreement to finance the renovation of that 
facility.  That said, it is unlikely that Caritas Lebanon 
could sustain EVI program activities without external funding 
from ICMC.  Likewise, it seems unlikely that Jordan Caritas 
would be in a position to maintain its existing EVI 
programming without ICMC's financial and managerial support. 
ICMC has found that Caritas Jordan has limited managerial 
capacity and difficulty recruiting staff given that only one 
university in Jordan currently offers a degree in social 
work.  ICMC's Jordan Representative Paklar is providing 
social worker training for Caritas' caseworkers to respond to 
this problem and proposes building a formal local-capacity 
building element into its existing EVI program if PRM 
maintains EVI program funding in Jordan for another year. 
 
------------------------------- 
ISSUES AFFECTING IMPLEMENTATION 
------------------------------- 
 
¶19. (SBU) ICMC is also debating whether it should diversify 
its implementing partners in Jordan to address Caritas' 
capacity problems.  In May, it registered as a local NGO to 
facilitate the search for a local partner that could assume 
control of its education activities.  In addition to 
experiencing difficulties with its local partners, 
ICMC/Caritas' operations are also being affected by recent 
Jordanian Government initiatives.  In late 2004, the Ministry 
of Interior required government schools to expel Iraqi 
children whose families do not possess an annual residency 
permit.  (NOTE: To qualify for such a permit, an Iraqi family 
must deposit a minimum of JD 50,000 in a Jordanian bank in an 
account that cannot be accessed during their stay in Jordan. 
END NOTE.)  On July 1, the Minister of Interior rejected a 
joint appeal from UNHCR, UNICEF and UNESCO to exempt children 
of refugees and asylum seekers from this directive, noting 
that such a decision would "practically accept refugees for 
local integration." 
 
¶20. (SBU) In addition, the Jordanian Ministry of Interior is 
currently asking UNHCR to refrain from renewing temporary 
protection identification cards for Iraqis and to limit the 
validity of any new cards for Iraqis it issues to one month, 
citing the March 2001 MOU that UNHCR signed with the GOJ that 
requires UNHCR to seek durable solutions for refugees within 
six months.  Political developments in Lebanon have not 
affected ICMC's operations to date, and are unlikely to do 
so.  However, EVI programming in Lebanon could be temporarily 
disrupted in late 2005 as rising commercial rents will likely 
force Caritas to re-locate at the end of 2005; the manager of 
Caritas' Lebanon Migrant Center told refcoord June 24 that 
she hopes to remain close to the green line to ensure the 
center continues to serve all religious communities. 
 
---------------------------- 
RECOMMENDATIONS/OBSERVATIONS 
---------------------------- 
 
¶21. (SBU)  Refcoord supports continuing funding ICMC to 
maintain both of its EVI programs in Jordan and Lebanon, and 
to provide additional social worker training in Jordan to 
improve local capacity building.  However, it would 
scrutinize ICMC/Caritas Lebanon's request for significant new 
equipment (i.e., vehicles). Based on first-hand observation 
of program beneficiaries, elements of the Iraqi community in 
Jordan and Lebanon are facing serious protection concerns, 
and will remain vulnerable as long as their quasi-legal 
status makes them vulnerable to exploitation and closes 
access to government services.  Given that UNHCR's community 
services programs for Iraqis in temporary protection status 
are extremely limited in Jordan and non-existent in Lebanon, 
ICMC/Caritas is filling a critical gap in protection aid. 
However, UNHCR's Jordan and Iraq Heads of Mission advise that 
UNHCR Geneva may be contemplating increasing the aid it 
provides vulnerable asylum seekers under its temporary 
protection regime.  If that occurs, refcoord recommends that 
UNHCR and ICMC conduct a stock-taking session to improve 
coordination.  Once UNHCR organizes assisted returns, unused 
program funds should be shifted to support voluntary 
repatriations. 
HALE