A More Focused Response: Donor Policies Toward IDPs

Twenty to twenty-five million persons forcibly displaced within their own countries, and struggling to survive, have become one of the more pressing humanitarian human rights and political issues now confronting the global community. However, donor governments do not always have specific policies toward persons forcibly displaced within their own countries, which may contribute to the overall ad hoc nature of the international response.

In 1998, the Brookings Institution’s Project on Internal Displacement and the U.S. Committee for Refugees published a paper by James Kunder, the former director of the U.S. Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to evaluate the U.S. Government’s policies and programs toward internally displaced persons. The U.S. Government did adopt some of the reports recommendations and took steps towards a more targeted U.S. approach to internal displacement. In an effort to examine the response of European governments to internal displacement, the Brookings-CUNY Project, in collaboration with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and the Norwegian Refugee Council, commissioned a paper by Philip Rudge to examine the approach of these governments in response to internal displacement in Colombia, Sudan, Chechnya/Ingushetia, and Afghanistan, focusing especially on the European Union per se, as well as the United Kingdom (an EU member) and Norway (not an EU member). On November 6, the Project will held a meeting in Brussels to review the findings of the draft report and to present its findings to the donor governments present.

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Report: The Need for a More Focused Response: European Donor Policies Toward Internally Displaced Persons, by Philip Rudge