From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

CHAPTER 1 Assessing National Approaches to Internal Displacement: Findings from 15 Countries
sought to improve on the RVRP. The document is technically
a special Decision of Principle (Prensip Kararı) and
therefore is not published in the Official Gazette. It contains
a framework of principles to shape an action plan
with NGO participation, as the Return to Village and
Rehabilitation Project was criticized for not consulting
NGOs. 33 The Ministry of the Interior instructed deputy
governors to use the Integrated Strategy Document to
inform all decisions made regarding the RVRP and the
Law on Compensation, but the document does not detail
how to address IDP issues. In a letter to the Permanent
Mission of Turkey to the UN in March 2006, RSG Walter
Kälin called for a plan of action to be developed. 34
Drafted with technical assistance from the United
Nations Development Programme and adopted by the
Turkish government in 2006, the Van Province Action
Plan for Responding to IDP Needs (hereafter, Van
Action Plan) reflects the Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement. The Van Acton Plan outlines the basic
principles pertaining to assistance of IDPs during
return, resettlement or reintegration. 35 It was developed
in consultation with various sectors of civil society,
including IDPs, and it is intended to be a pilot project
or “blueprint” to be later implemented in the thirteen
other provinces affected by internal displacement. 36
Begun in 2006, implementation of the Van Action Plan
33 Dilek Kurban, Ayşe Betül Celik and Deniz Yükseker,
Overcoming a Legacy of Mistrust: Toward Reconciliation
between the State and the Displaced: Update on the
Implementation of the Recommendations Made by the UN
Secretary-General’s Representative on Internally Displaced
Persons following his Visit to Turkey (www.internaldisplacement.org).
34 Walter Kälin, letter sent to the Permanent Mission of
Turkey to the United Nations, 31 March 2006. On file with
the authors.
35 Deniz Yükseker and Dilek Kurban, Permanent Solution to
Internal Displacement? An Assessment of the Van Action
Plan for IDPs, Turkish Economic and Social Studies
Foundation (TESEV), May 2009, p. 6, (www.tesev.org.tr).
36 Full text available at Brookings-Bern Project on Internal
Displacement, “National and Regional Laws and Policies
on Internal Displacement: Turkey” (www.brookings.edu/
projects/idp/Laws-and-Policies/turkey.aspx).
82
is administered by the Van governorate, where IDP figures
are some of the highest in the country. According to
the government, the Van Action Plan included eightyfour
proposed projects worth $72 million by December
2007, over forty of which were still being negotiated
in 2009. 37 Ultimately, a comprehensive national plan
is to be developed once all thirteen other action plans
are finalized. While progress on the thirteen provincial
plans was made in 2009, there appeared to be no major
developments in this direction as of mid-2011.
Like Turkey, Pakistan does not have a national policy on
internal displacement; nonetheless, it does have a policy
specific to IDPs for one of the main provinces affected
by internal displacement. In Pakistan, at the provincial
level, the government of the North-West Frontier
Province (NWFP) signed with the United Nations a
return policy framework document in July 2009. 38 This
policy is in line with the Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement in that it stresses that returns will be voluntary,
safe and conducted in dignity and recognizes
that while return is preferred, local integration also is
an option. Further, in this document the government
committed itself to upholding international standards,
to “provide respectful treatment of IDPs,” and to ensure
that vulnerable IDPs are properly consulted through all
stages. The policy also recognizes that the international
community, with the support of the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is responsible
for assisting the NWFP government. 39
37 Latest available data at the time of writing. Government
of Turkey, Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United
Nations, Geneva (GoT/UN Mission), 27 July 2007,
“Information Note on Developments Regarding the
Situation of Internal Displacement Provided to IDMC,
cited in IDMC, Turkey: Need for Continued Improvement
in Response to Protracted Displacement: A Profile of the
Internal Displacement Situation, October 2009, p. 150
(www.internal-displacement.org). For a discussion of the
projects, see Yükseker and Kurban, Permanent Solution to
Internal Displacement? An Assessment of the Van Action
Plan for IDPs.
38 The name of the province was officially changed in April
2010 to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
39 Government of NWFP, Emergency Response Unit,