In June 1994 the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Children's Fund together agreed that a coordinated approach to the plight of unaccompanied children in Rwanda was essential. On the assumption that computerized matching would facilitate their reunification with their families, it was decided to centralize on a database the names and other details of unaccompanied children and of parents looking for their children. The responsibility for setting up and running this database was assigned to the ICRC.
Given the quantity of data collected, the geographical spread, the complexity of the data handling, the extraordinary circumstances, the cost and the multiple agencies present in the field, the ICRC wanted to evaluate the efficacy of the central database in case such a crisis ever arose again. The following aspects were examined: first, the project's overall success; second, how, why and which reunifications were attributable, in the different phases described, to the centralization of data; third, which proportion of the workload was inappropriate; and fourth, whether the approach adopted was an appropriate response to the emergency.