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ID CARDS FOR REFUGEES
Microsoft and Securit supply ID kits for UNHCR
17th September 2001
Securit Registration Kits in Senegal
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In Senegal there are 30,000 refugees who have fled their homes in tragically war-torn places like Sierra Leone and Rwanda. All too often they have lost everything they own and have been separated from their families.
Sadly, this story is repeated all over the world and it's the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees -- the UNHCR -- that takes primary responsibility for assisting the millions of refugees and displaced persons with food, shelter, clothing and protection.
Often the first step for UNHCR is registration -- the simple but significant act of recording names and related data -- which plays a pivotal role in meeting basic humanitarian needs. But in hostile or fast-changing conditions, the system for taking and using this data almost always depended on paper and pens and never took full advantage of today's most advanced technology.
At Microsoft, we've worked to change that. Using the power of our people and our software, we've developed a portable refugee registration system that UNHCR has deployed throughout the world, and in some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable. It's an example of how software can make the world a better place.
It all began with the refugee crisis in Kosovo. When word of the suffering spread, Microsoft employees around the world asked the UNHCR what they could do to help. The organization responded with a request for a refugee registration system for use in Albania and Macedonia that was portable, rugged, simple to use, and quick to deploy. Joined by our industry partners -- including Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Securit World Ltd and ScreenCheck -- and in co-operation with long-serving non-governmental organizations, our volunteers created a cutting-edge field-kit that solved the problem.
In less than two months, together we developed, field-tested and deployed refugee registration kits according to UNHCR specifications. Included in the kits were computers, digital cameras, signature pads, special ID card printers and related hardware and software. In a short time, hundreds of thousands of refugees were given their identities back and reconnected with their lives.
UNHCR realised the importance of the IT component to registration after the Kosovo experience and asked Microsoft to work with them on the next challenge. As Larry Fioretta from UNHCR said, "this is a powerful tool that can play a major role in helping us help refugees around the world." Using first-hand knowledge gained in the field, our programmers began working on version 2.0 -- the Refugee Registration Field Kit 2000 -- for a UNHCR project in Senegal. Working under an extremely tight deadline, Microsoft programmers added new features to the kit that helped speed up data entry through simpler security, search, and cataloging capabilities.
As the deadline drew near, Microsoft volunteers traveled to Senegal to complete the programming and deploy the new field kit onsite in Dakar, Thies and Saint-Louis. Working around the clock, volunteers were able to register thousands of refugees in a matter of days. Identification documents were issues, and families were reunited.
As one Microsoft programmer noted of the Senegal project, "The kit upgrade shows that Microsoft's commitment to the refugee-registration system was not just a one-shot effort, but a true long-term gesture of goodwill. It's great to see the work we did during the Kosovo crisis extended beyond that conflict."
What began as an emergency effort, has become a long-term, sustainable capability that will change forever and enhance the capacity for UNHCR to help those in need. This is Microsoft's commitment: to use its technological know-how and experience to provide hope and help for people in need. And the goal is simple: to help make people's lives and the world we live in better through software.
As one dedicated volunteer said: "When you see first-hand that it is possible to put computers to work in some of the hardest places on Earth, it makes you realize just how much technology can do. You can improve the human condition and restore to people their sense of self, their dignity. That is a powerful thing."
Through our experience with UNHCR we have learned a lot, but what stands out most is this: with good people, good will and great software, we can make the world a better place.
By Ed Heyden
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