Abu Dhabi: The head of the UN refugee agency yesterday appealed to the UAE to lead international efforts to help bring an end to the world’s largest protracted refugee situation.

“The UAE — the world’s largest donor of development assistance in proportion to its gross national income — is well-placed to lead the international efforts to return Afghan refugees from Pakistan,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, told Gulf News yesterday.

Stressing the very close connections binding the UAE with both Afghanistan and Pakistan, Guterres proposed that the UAE sponsor a pilot project to voluntary repatriate and reintegrate as many as 100,000 Afghan refugees.

The pilot project costs $70 million (Dh257 million) to $80 million as Afghan returnees receive $200 per person ($1,200 per family of an average size of six). This return cash assistance is proposed to be supplemented by two payments of $1,500 to cover mid-term needs of three months upon arrival and $1,500 payable three months after the receipt of the second payment.

The High Commissioner said Afghanistan has presented plans to provide returnees with education, health and livelihood to help them rebuild their lives.

“Creating an environment conducive to return — with employment opportunities, basic services and the chance to be self-sufficient — will help UNHCR to return and integrate returnees,” Guterres said.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Lieutenant General Abdul Quadir Baloch, Pakistan’s Minister of State and Frontier Regions held talks with Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of International Cooperation and Development and officials of the Emirates Red Crescent.

Pakistan’s Minister of State and Frontier Regions said as many as 3.5 million Afghan refugees had voluntarily returned to their home country since 1979.

“Plans have been agreed by the UNHCR, Afghanistan and Pakistan to return the remaining three million Afghan refugees over the next two years,” the Pakistani minister said.

Over the past three decades the voluntary repatriation of Afghans has taken place in waves during moments of change when refugees considered that prospects for peace and stability had improved. These return movements have been overlaid with refugee outflows during the times of conflict.

According to UNHCR’s statistics, since 2002, over 5.8 million Afghan refugees have returned home. More than 80 per cent of them (4.7 million) were assisted through the largest voluntary repatriation programme in the history of UNHCR. About 3.8 million returned from Pakistan and more than 900,000 from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The majority of these returns took place during the peak period of 2002-2008.