From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

this body include preparing “strategic plans, programs
and projects to resettle IDPs, rehabilitate and develop
economic and social infrastructure of the Northern
Province,” where most of the conflict was concentrated.
Its main role is
to coordinate activities of the security agencies
of the Government in support of resettlement,
rehabilitation and development and to liaise
with all organization in the public and private
sectors and civil society organizations for the
proper implement of programs and projects.
The PTF is involved in, and must approve, all humanitarian
and reconstruction projects undertaken in the
North. It is a temporary entity, and its mandate must be
renewed every year.
Variations on this theme are found in several of the
other cases. In Afghanistan, there is a national IDP
task force co-chaired by Ministry of Refugees and
Repatriation (MoRR) and UNHCR. 7 In the Central
African Republic, a committee on IDPs is the focal body
for addressing internal displacement, but as an amalgam
of different institutional actors, the committee has
little to no institutional capacity of its own. In Sudan,
the High-level Committee on Internally Displaced
Persons and Returns was formed in July 2007, but no
information could be found pertaining to its activities.
In Georgia, 8 the State Commission for Elaborating a
State Strategy on IDPs was established in 2006 with the
specific task, as its name indicates, of drafting and finalizing
a state strategy for addressing the country’s crisis
of protracted internal displacement; the strategy was
adopted in 2007. Chaired by the focal point ministry,
the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation (MRA),
the State Commission included among its members the
Ministry of Justice; the Ministry of Labor, Health and
Social Policy; the Ministry of Economic Development;
7 See further the Afghanistan case study in chapter 2 of this
volume.
8 See further the Georgia case study in chapter 2 of this
volume.
Benchmark 7 Designate an Institutional Focal Point on IDPs
93
the Ministry for Territorial Reintegration; and representatives
of the Abkhaz Government-in-Exile. In 2009, a
steering committee on IDPs, also chaired by MRA, was
established to oversee implementation of the state strategy
and, in particular, of its action plan. Members of
the steering committee include all relevant government
ministries as well as the main international agencies,
including UNHCR and the World Bank, and the main
donors that have contributed funds for implementation
of the action plan.
In other cases, IDP issues are to be addressed through
national inter-ministerial coordination forum on humanitarian
affairs (e.g. DRC) or on coordination on
broader issues (Nepal, Uganda). These broader mechanisms
are not necessarily chaired by the line ministry
for IDPs, which may participate only as a member of
the committee (as in Nepal and Uganda). In Uganda,
there is the Inter-Ministerial Policy Committee on
Internal Displacement, chaired by the Minister of the
Department for Disaster Preparedness (DDPR) in the
Office of the Prime Minister (the national focal institutional
point for IDPs), and an Inter-Ministerial Technical
Committee, chaired by the Permanent Secretary in the
Office of the Prime Minister.
Irrespective of the committee’s scope and structure, in
a number of cases, the established committees appear
to be nonfunctional or at least not very active. There is
little to no information easily available about their work,
in particular in the cases of the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, Nepal and Sudan. Alternatively, some have
been very slow to begin meeting following their establishment
(for example, the Central African Republic).
Irrespective of the existence of such committees, coordination
between the institutional focal point and other
relevant government entities generally tends to be suboptimal
across the case studies.
Compounding coordination challenges among state
organs is the fact that the state institutional focal point
for addressing internal displacement often enjoys little
political clout and leverage compared with other state
entities, especially with regard to protection issues (as