Country Requirements:

One of the largest problems that we face in doing 3H, WCS and Matching Grant Projects involving equipment or supplies and materials are the restrictions or requirements that many countries put on imports, or just plain delivery delays. 1998-1999 RI President Jim Lacy discussed this with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan during Rotary/UN Day on 29 October 1998. Mr. Annan pledged UN assistance for cutting the red tape for future shipments and ongoing support for local cooperation. Jim Johannsen, member of the WCSRN discussed this problem with Rotary UN Representative Donald W. Treimann, PDG at the 2/3-10, 2000 International Assembly in Anaheim and Don asked for any specific examples of problems getting humanitarian aid shipments into other countries. We will be giving Don some past examples but if you have any problems on your future shipments, please e-mail Don with the details..

This Section of the WCSRN Web Site will identify these requirements as we identify them, but as you can imagine, with 190 countries to cover, this will be very difficult to do. In the meantime, the best thing you can do, when you are planning a shipment, is to contact a Project Chair for a recent project to see if they are aware of any problems. Another source of information on these limitations is District 6110 Rotarian Jessica Settle, of the RF funded Humanitarian Aid Resources and Transportation (HART) project in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA (See Section H. Transportation).