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16 September 2009 On September 16, 2009, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will sign in Chisinau, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Border Guard Service (BGS) of the Republic of Moldova, the Bureau for Migration and Asylum (BMA) under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Moldova and the Law Center of Advocates NGO. The agreement is part of a project funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by UNHCR called “Regional Protection Support Project (RPSP)” and will include activities in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. The project, with the budget for Moldova of 400 000 EUR, started on 1 April 2009 and will be carried out during two years. The main objective of the project is to contribute to ensuring that asylum-seekers and refugees in the region have access to the protection systems established by law and in accordance to international refugee law standards, including to resettlement to third countries, should adequate protection be unattainable for specific individual cases. Under the memorandum of understanding, joint protection monitoring will be carried out regularly including in border areas so as to ensure asylum seekers have access to the country and to asylum procedures. In addition to protection monitoring, counseling and legal assistance are included in the agreement, as well as assistance for those who are not eligible for international protection and want to return to their home country. With a view to improving access of asylum-seekers to the asylum procedure, UNHCR will provide support to asylum and border authorities in order to facilitate cooperation and improve the transfer of asylum applications and the referral of asylum-seekers from the BGS to the BMA. A number of capacity building activities for government authorities and the NGO partner will be implemented, including a training strategy that will address the need to improve the knowledge on asylum protection principles. UNHCR signed similar agreements with Hungary in 2006, Slovakia in 2007 and Belarus in 2008. These arrangements represent an important element of UNHCR's activities under the 10 Point Plan of Action for Eastern and South Eastern borders of the EU on managing mixed flows of migrants and asylum seekers. Belarus and Moldova acceded to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 2001, followed by Ukraine in 2002. The countries make a lot of efforts to bring the national asylum systems in line with the international and European standards. The refugee legislation and asylum institutions are put in place. During the last decade about 7,000 persons from 42 countries got refugee status in the three countries. 
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