Foreign Affairs: Internally Displaced Persons Lack Effective Protection
Highlights
Internally displaced persons--those forced to flee their homes because of armed conflict and persecution but who remain within their own country--are among the most at-risk, vulnerable populations in the world. Although some protections have been provided to internally displaced persons, international organizations have been unable to fully meet their needs in most locations, partly because of the danger in operating in conflict zones, the presence of personal security risks to aid workers, and the decline in budgetary resources, but also because international organizations have not taken a proactive approach toward protection. Also, international relief workers have not received training on how to incorporate protection considerations and interventions into their assistance activities. In the three countries GAO visited, international organizations do not coordinate their protection actions within the countries in which they operate. Without such coordination, international organizations are unable to share basic information on the location of their protection officers and effective approaches to protection interventions. The U.N. Security Council is one forum in which these matters can be addressed in the context of underlying political and security factors. The U.S. government has no overall policy or lead office to coordinate its efforts for dealing with internally displaced persons. Instead, government activities aimed at this effort are dispersed among different agencies and offices. Some Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development officials believe that providing assistance to the internally displaced in this way is labor and time intensive, lacks accountability, and leads to duplication of activities. Although State is required to provide Congress with an annual report on human rights violations, these reports include only limited information on the treatment of internally displaced persons. Moreover, the country reports do not have a standardized format for providing information on the internally displaced and their human rights conditions which would allow concerned parties to access the information readily. Increased and more systematic reporting that provided some focus on internally displaced persons would identify a significant problem and would provide the U.S. government and international and nongovernmental organizations' officials with country-level data to craft a cohesive program and policy response.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of State | To strengthen the international response to the plight of the internally displaced, the Secretary of State and the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations should (1) work to advance more proactive policies and programs to protect and assist internally displaced persons and (2) seek with other member states to strengthen international organizations' protection efforts by encouraging them to implement a training program for international organizations and to form country-level protection working groups. |
Closed – Implemented
In the August 2001 report (Foreign Affairs: Internally Displaced Persons Lack Effective Protection, GAO-01-803), GAO recommended that the Secretary of State work to advance more proactive policies and programs to protect and assist Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). In response, the United Nations established the Internally Displaced Division within the Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance to coordinate overall U.N. efforts for displaced populations. The United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee also published a practical handbook implementing the Collaborative Response to Situations of Internal Displacement: Guidance for United Nations Humanitarians and/or Coordinators and Country Teams to guide field staff on displacement issues. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees conducted a detailed review of the agency's efforts to assist and protect displaced persons and, according to State officials, have implemented a more robust response to IDPs. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights increased field staff and had taken a more pro-active response to protect and assist on IDP situations. Finally, ending a bureaucratic stalemate that lasted several years, USAID was designated the lead U.S. agency for IDPs and instituted tri-weekly coordination meetings with State.
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| Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations | To strengthen the international response to the plight of the internally displaced, the Secretary of State and the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations should (1) work to advance more proactive policies and programs to protect and assist internally displaced persons and (2) seek with other member states to strengthen international organizations' protection efforts by encouraging them to implement a training program for international organizations and to form country-level protection working groups. |
Closed – Implemented
In August 2001, GAO recommended (Foreign Affairs: Internally Displaced Persons Lack Effective Protection, GAO-01-803) that the Secretary of State strengthen international organizations' protection efforts by implementing training programs and forming country-level protection working groups. In response, U.N. organizations, U.S. government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations implemented Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) training programs for their staff. For example, UNHCR created an IDP module for its 2 volume Protection Learning Program. According to State officials, the International Rescue Committee conducted a 3-year train-the-trainer program on protection and IDP, and InterAction, the International Council for Voluntary Action, and USAID conducted a workshop in Geneva, Switzerland for international NGOs on IDP in 2005. USAID has conducted a series of 3-day training course on IDP and has also added IDP modules into its other training programs--for example, disaster assistance response team training. Finally, numerous NGOs, such as Save the Children, CARE, and Catholic Relief Services, have included IDP training into their agency's training portfolio. According to State and USAID officials, country level protection working groups are standard practices in countries with refugees and IDPs. For example, in Sudan there are three protection working groups in Darfur and one each in Khartoum and the southern region, and they have created a joint data base on protection concerns. According to an USAID official, in addition to Sudan, he recently participated in protection working group meetings in Afghanistan, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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| Department of State | The Secretary of State should include a focus on internal displacement issues in the State's annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. |
Closed – Implemented
In response, as shown in the Department of State's 2004 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, State increased the breadth and scope of Internally Displaced Person (IDP) reporting in its annual human rights report. State also improved the reporting format on IDP issues by concentrating the bulk of its findings into one section (2d) of the individual country reports and harmonizing report language.
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