UNewservice UN signs grant with World Bank to revamp East Timor's health sector

7 June -- The United Nations mission in East Timor and the World Bank today signed a $12.7 million grant to help revamp the country's health sector.

The funds will be used to rehabilitate and develop hospitals and clinics, restore access to basic services throughout the country and develop a policy for an appropriate health system, the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) said in a statement issued in Dili.

"This is probably the most important document I have signed," said Sergio Vieira de Mello, the head of the UN mission, at the signing ceremony. "It is a vital project in the true meaning of the word. Now let's make sure that the Timorese people see the actual results of the signing."

This first installment is part of a three-year project that is expected to have a total budget of $37 million.

In another development, a joint UN team dealing with human rights and other judicial issues left East Timor today for meetings in Jakarta with the Indonesian Attorney General's Office, which is investigating the human rights violations that occurred in East Timor last autumn.

In its meeting tomorrow, the UN team will review the arrangements for a visit by a delegation from the Indonesian Attorney General's Office to Dili to investigate last year's killing of Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes, the church massacres in Suai and Liquica and attacks on the houses of Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo and Timorese businessman, Manuel Carrascalao.

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