Demining
Let me first with an update on the Nader Kahn Hill where some unexploded ordnance was found, as I told you on Sunday. The Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan and its demining partners have been working on the case.

There are now 68 deminers clearing the area. They hope to finish in time for Nau Rouz.

These unexploded ordnances have been found in what was originally a Taliban Military position up until November last year. The Mine Action Centre were allowed to clear the surrounding area (which they did last in 1997) of the military camp, but were never allowed inside.

In order to answer your questions on this issue we have a special guest today. Latif Matin, Regional Manager of the Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan. He will take your questions at the end of the briefing. He has a map with him which he will use to show you the no-go areas and where it has been cleared. He will make the same presentation on Afghanistan TV which will be broadcast on Wednesday if I am not mistaken for the Kabuli population so that they take that into consideration when they organise their Nau Rouz activities.

UNESCO - Nau Rouz
And talking about Nau Rouz, we told you about the UNESCO-sponsored concert at the stadium on 21 March. Just to let you know that on 22 March, also in the stadium there will be a football match, and on 23 March there will be a Buscashi match. All of this happening at the stadium. These activities have been planned by a Commission established at the Ministry of Information and Culture and led by Mr. Haider Mutahir and we understand were you to have questions on any of these activities, he should be your contact for that.

I should also tell you that in the surroundings, near the stadium, at the Gesham Show Ground, there will be a craft fair that will bring together 15 pavillions that will display a variety of handicrafts and carpets for one week.

Afghan Interim Authority Fund
Those of you who have been here for some time and have been following the Afghan Administration story, know that something called the Afghan Interim Authority Fund was established at the time of the Authority taking office and that was a fund [established by] the UN Development Programme (UNDP) [in cooperation with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General Lakhdar Brahimi]. This Fund has the purpose of getting the immediate Administrative costs covered, including civil service salaries. In three months of existence, US$26,000,000 have been paid into the Fund by international donors. The total pledges to the Fund from more than 20 countries have so far exceeded US $37,000,000. The total requirement of is US$50,000,000.

Together with the finance Ministry, the UN Development Programme has paid January salaries for more than 64,000 Kabul-based civil servants, and more than 55,000 of them have received their February wages. The Ministry is currently surveying key cities in the provinces for information needed to expand pay roll services beyond Kabul. However, this survey already allowed salaries to be secured for 4,000 civil servants in the Laga and Baghlan Provinces. Salaries in other provinces will be paid upon completion of this survey. We will have a note on this Fund prepared by UNDP at the end of this briefing for you.

Food for Education
In a few moments Eddie Carwardine from UNICEF, will be updating you on the "Back to School" programme but I would like to tell you about the World Food Programme's efforts to support the beginning of the school year through their "Food for Education" project which aims at feeding as many as 1 million boys and girls in the whole country in the course of the school year.

In Kabul, the World Food Programme will be increasing the capacity of its existing 21 female-run bakeries, in order to provide some 5,000 school children in 10 Kabul schools with fresh bread each day they attend classes. WFP will eventually reach between 250,000 and 300,000 schoolchildren in Kabul alone through its bakeries. New women bakeries will open in Kabul to undertake this task, and will employ up to 3,500 more female bakers.

Still on bakeries, this past weekend WFP re-opened 80 bakeries in Mazar-I-Sharif which were shut in October. They assist 20,000 families. Twenty of the bakeries are female-run, employing some 250 women in total. An additional 20 bakeries operated by women bakers will be launched by the end of the month.

We have a note prepared by WFP at the back of the room with more information on that.

Refugees returning home
We also have a note at the back of the room on refugees prepared by UNHCR. I will just highlight a few points to you. The most striking one of course is that 8,900 Afghan refugees returned to Afghanistan on Monday; they came back from Pakistan. This brought to around 54,000 the overall number of returns under a repatriation programme organized by the Ministry for Repatriation and supported by UNHCR. The number of returnees has been increasing steadily since the programme started on 1 March. Thousands of refugees have been converging at the UNHCR center at Takhta Baig in Pakistan to register in order to receive transportation and relief assistance on their arrival in Afghanistan. To cope with the larger numbers, UNHCR plans to open two additional registration centers on 1 April.

The note that I mentioned at the back of the room, in addition to this information on [refugee] return movement, will also give details on the return movement of the internally displaced people who are in the former Soviet compound here in Kabul, going back home to the Shomali plain.

Employment Projects For Men & Women
You know HABITAT is one of the UN agencies working here and those of you who have been here longer may have heard of two projects; the Pasta Project and the Road Project.

The Pasta Project was started with great difficulty, in Mazar-i-Sharif, in the spring of 2000, and in Kabul last March. Work was halted after September 11, and was restarted here in Kabul on 26 January. In this Pasta Project, women are employed to make the pasta from local ingredients available at the bazaar, the pasta is then distributed to poor families in the neighbourhood. Workers themselves are paid in wheat by the World Food Programme. There are 42 centres in Kabul, each one employs 52 women on three shifts, nationwide they employ approximately 11,000 women.

The Past Project is for women and the Road Project is for men. This is a public works employment project that has been on going for the past two years. Men are employed to work in the gravel pit outside the city, transporting the gravel to the city centre. The Road Project for Kabul, which involves the gravelling of road surfaces, employs 700 men, and nationwide approximately 2000.

If any of you are interested in visiting these projects there will be an opportunity this afternoon at 3 o'clock, and those of you who might be interested please see Rebecca Richards sitting at the back of the room. She will be organising that.

National Health Sector Planning Workshop
I am reaching the end of my briefing, just to tell you that the World Health Organisation asked us to remind you that today at 5.30pm at the Intercontinental Hotel, there is a press conference scheduled with Dr. Sohaila Siddiq, the Minister of Public Health, and that is on the occasion of the closure of the National Health Sector Planning Workshop. She will be telling you about the plans for the reconstruction of the health sector in Afghanistan.

Finally, before I go to Eddie and then questions, including those on demining, tomorrow at 10 o'clock in this room, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, the Special Representative of the Secretaty-General on Afghanistan, will be holding a press conference on the occasion of Nau Rouz, and of course talking about current situation in the country and the days and months ahead.

Back to School - Eddie Carwardine
Good morning. A few faces I know a few I do not, so let me introduce myself. My name is Edward Carwardine, I am the UNICEF Spokesperson in Kabul. I just wanted to give you a quick bit of information about the start of the new school term on Saturday, 23 March, this Saturday, and particularly to tell you about the formal celebrations that will take place here in Kabul to kick off the new school term. There is a media advisory, which I think some of you may have picked up already, I will give you just a few brief details.

The formal celebration will take place at the Amani High School here in the centre of Kabul, next door to the Turkish Embassy and opposite the Presidential Palace. It will be led by His Excellency Chairman Hamid Karzai and the Minister of Education, Dr. Rasool Amin and Carole Bellamy, UNICEF's Executive Director will also be in attendance and will speak at that ceremony. The whole proceeding is going to be led by a female student teacher who will be the compare if you like for the whole ceremony, children will obviously play a very visual role. There will also be a parade of the new school uniforms being put together by the Ministry of Education and once the formal speech element has been completed, the Chairman and his guests will spend some time informally with teachers, talking with children in a school tent, which has been provided by UNICEF and erected in the grounds of the school. The idea being that we wanted to show education across Afghanistan will not just take place in school rooms but will take place in a whole range of different learning environments.

Following the informal session with children and teachers, the Chairman will finally plant a tree in the grounds of the school, obviously in keeping with the Afghan tradition for the new year and symbolising the new start of education in the country. Obviously there are plenty of opportunities for our friends in the media. Access to the school for the media will be between 7.00-9.00 in the morning. The ceremony itself will begin at 10.00am, but there will be no access to anybody after 9.00am.

Obviously there are some very senior members of the Administration going to be there and 500 guests from the national and international community. Roads will be closed from early in the morning and access will only be allowed into the school before 9 o'clock. We are setting-up a media stage in the gymnasium which is the room being used for the ceremony so I hope you will have good filming and photography positions and there will be media access to the tent as well when the Chairman meets informally with children and teachers. Access will be done by presentation of your media card, press identity card that we hope will be sufficient and there will be UNICEF media people there just to make sure there are no problems in getting you access but you will need your press cards to make sure you can get into the area.

Following the formal celebrations in the morning, just to let you know the second item, there will be a press conference in the afternoon at 5.30pm at the Presidential Palace. It is being called by Chairman Hamid Karzai, himself, the Minister of Education and Carol Bellamy and possibly other Members of the Administration will be there to take questions from the media on the theme of Back to School and the education campaign. The exact room in the Palace is yet to be confirmed but it will be at 5.30pm and will try to get you details as soon as possible. Any questions.
Q: On the issue of refugees returning, as they are returning every day is there a concern for the resources and can the country absorb so many at once? Are you at all concerned about the numbers coming in or is it basically what you expected?
Spokesman: The numbers coming in are larger than what was expected by UNHCR and those working on that, but they are coping with it and as I mentioned they are expanding the registration centres and so far it is going well. It is more than was planned but they are being able to help them.

Q: [inaudible] on number of returns prior to March
A: I will have to check but I think last [Thursday] when Yusuf was briefing here [he said] that about 180,000 had come back here prior to this movement that started on 1 March.

Q: [inaudible]
Spokesman: yes, 6,000

Q: Are you counting the returnees as those who have registered?
Spokesman: It is arrival here.

Q: I know of ten people in one car, and they said there are around 10,000 cars on the road who have not registered. They do not want money from the UN. Have you any other body to monitor the Afghans who have not registered but are returning?
Spokesman: I will have to refer you to UNHCR on that one.

Q: Is there enough food, water, shelter for the increased numbers of returnees?
Spokesman: They are receiving the repatriation packages which cover those areas and all are receiving what they are entitled to receive. The note at the back lists what is in the package and you can get the details of that at the back of the room.

If there are no more questions I will give the floor to Latif Matin from the Mine Action Centre for Afghanistan.

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UN High Commission for Refugees

BRIEFING NOTE
Kabul, 19 March 2002

More than 8,900 Afghan refugees returned to Afghanistan on Monday from Pakistan. This brought to around 54,000 the overall number of returns under a repatriation program organized by the Afghan Interim Administration and supported by UNHCR. The number of returnees has been increasing steadily since the program started on 1 March.

Thousands of refugees have been converging at the UNHCR center at Takhta Baig in Pakistan to register in order to receive transportation and relief assistance on their arrival in Afghanistan. To cope with the large numbers, UNHCR plans to open two additional registration centers on 1 April in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. Each refugee receives a transportation allowance of 20 dollars or 100 dollars per family of five on arrival in Afghanistan. The returnees also get a UNHCR package containing plastic sheeting, kitchen set, blankets, jerry can, mat, stove, lamp and 150 kilograms of wheat from the World Food Program.

Meanwhile, 554 internally displaced people living at the former Soviet compound in Kabul went home to the Shomali plain in central Afghanistan on Thursday under a program carried out by the Ministry of Repatriation, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration. Since the program started on 6 March 6,750 IDPs have returned to Shomali.

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WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME

BRIEFING NOTE
Kabul, 19 March 2002

In Hirat, WFP-led assessments by helicopter began today, flying into Taiwara district in Ghor province to investigate the food security, health and nutritional situation on the ground. Assessments will be carried out in Taiwara today, Wednesday and Thursday and will expand to neighboring Pasaband district in the days that follow. In addition to WFP teams, staff from NGOs such as Action Against Hunger will be flying to vulnerable areas in western Afghanistan on the WFP helicopters over the next several weeks.
If journalists are interested in flying on these missions, please contact Jennifer Abrahamson in Islamabad today at +91-320-450-6813, or Alejandro Chicheri at the WFP office in Kabul starting tomorrow afternoon.

Last weekend WFP re-opened 80 bakeries which were shut in October and assisted 20,000 families in Mazar-I-Sharif. Twenty of the bakeries are female-run, employing some 250 women in total. An additional 20 bakeries operated by women bakers will be launched by the end of the month. Vulnerable Afghans who receive the WFP bread constitute 40 percent of Mazar's neediest families, including many female-headed households.

In Kabul, WFP will be increasing the capacity of its existing 21 female-run bakeries, in order to provide some 5,000 school children in 10 Kabul schools with fresh bread each day they attend classes. WFP will eventually reach between 250,000 and 300,000 schoolchildren in Kabul alone through its bakeries. New women bakeries will open in Kabul to undertake this task, and will employ up to 3,500 more female bakers. WFP is striving to feed as many as 1 million Afghan boys and girls countrywide through its food for education project.

In the Shomali plains, WFP has released around 900 metric tons of food for some 6,000 families that are returning to their villages from the Panshir Valley and the ex-Soviet compound in Kabul. Each family there will receive a three-month ration of WFP wheat.

On top of that, WFP has released 2,000 metric tons of food for thousands of refugees returning from Pakistan to the central highlands. UNHCR facilitated returnee families will receive their 3-month ration of food at five distribution points in Ghazni, Logar, Kabul Bamian and Parwan provinces.

In Kandahar, the citywide WFP food distribution that started last Wednesday is ongoing and will provide more than 46,000 families with a one-off 50 kg sack of wheat and should be completed on Thursday March 21.

Since October, WFP has delivered 370,000 tons of food into Afghan territory, and has distributed 305,000 tons of that throughout the country, helping some 6.6 million people survive drought and winter.

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NOTE ON AFGHAN INTERIM AUTHORITY FUND

A special fund that was established by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to support government activities in Afghanistan has received more than US $26 million from international donors during its first three months. The Afghan Interim Authority Fund (AIAF), set up in cooperation with Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, has enabled the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) to pay civil service salaries and cover crucial administrative costs.

In response to a recent appeal by Mr. Brahimi for additional funds, a number of countries have stepped up their initial contributions to the AIA. These countries include Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States. Total pledges to the fund, from more than 20 countries, have so far exceeded $37 million, out of a total requirement of $50 million.

Contributions to the AIAF underline the seriousness of the international community in helping the Afghan authorities build up their government institutions," said Julia Taft, UNDP Assistant Administrator, who manages the fund. "This fund is instrumental in helping the interim authority function during this crucial transitional period."

Since taking over on 22 December 2001, the AIA has been reviewing employee rosters for thousands of civil service posts, covering teachers, health workers, police and administration throughout the country. UNDP is facilitating this process by advising the Ministry of Finance on payment mechanisms and verification of employee rosters. That includes the preparation of the payroll, payroll certification, approval by authorized signatories, and a system of authentication of signatures on the payroll. UNDP will also support the AIA in preparing the government budget for the fiscal year beginning 21 March 2002.

Together with the finance ministry, UNDP has ensured the payment of January salaries for more than 64,700 Kabul-based civil servants. More than 55,700 of them have also received their February wages. The ministry is currently surveying key cities in the provinces for information needed to expand payroll services beyond Kabul. That has allowed UNDP to secure salaries for 4,000 civil servants in the Laga and Bghaglan provinces. Salaries in other provinces will be paid upon the survey's completion.

Other activities financed by the AIAF included the emergency repair of ministry buildings and the delivery of office equipment, supplies, communications and vehicles to various government offices. The fund has also covered renting and equipping the offices of the Loya Jirga (national council) and the allocation of monies for training and equipment to automate a payroll system and train payroll managers.

Additional funding through the AIAF will enable the government to ensure schools can open later this week with approximately 57,000 teachers fully employed. It will also support the civilian police, strengthen the public administration of key ministries, and help in setting up judicial, human rights and civil service commissions.

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