From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

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CHAPTER 1 Assessing National Approaches to Internal Displacement: Findings from 15 Countries parties have inhibited the participation of the Kurdish population, who make up the overwhelming majority of IDPs in the country. 57 In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, some of the identified obstacles to IDP participation include lack of documentation, lack of legislation or policies enabling IDPs to vote in their community of origin, difficulties in transport, or even outright intimidation. In DRC’s 2006 general elections, millions of voters elected Joseph Kabila as the country’s first democratically elected president. 58 However, according to the DRC’s electoral law, citizens had to vote in the place of registration. The majority of the country’s 1.7 million IDPs at the time could not participate in the elections, particularly those in Ituri district, North Kivu province and Katanga province, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Most had left their voter registration cards behind or lost them in flight from armed groups. But insecurity also limited IDPs’ freedom of movement to register; some IDPs refused to return home to vote due to fear of armed groups. 59 Looking ahead to the general elections tentatively scheduled for November 2011, IDPs who remain displaced may be unable to exercise their right to vote or the right to register on the electoral rolls. 60 57 See the chapter on Turkey in Mooney and Jarrah, The Voting Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in the OSCE Region, pp. 61–64. 58 The Carter Center, “Background: The Carter Center and the Historic 2006 Democratic Republic of the Congo Elections,” 27 October 2006 (www.cartercenter.org/news/ pr/drc_122606.html). 59 See for example, Tim Cocks, “RPT: Congo’s Displaced Struggle to Vote,” Reuters, 28 October 2006 (www.alertnet. org/thenews/newsdesk/L28881924.htm). 60 This was recognized by the RSG for IDPs with respect to the elections scheduled at the time for 2008; see UN Human Rights Council, Report Submitted by the Representative of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Walter Kälin—Addendum: Mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, A/HRC/8/6/ Add.3, 16 May 2008, paras. 56–57 (http://ap.ohchr.org/ documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=71). 126 Even when there are no administrative obstacles to participation, there can be “self-censorship” of political participation. In Kenya, 61 IDPs displaced by the 2007- 2008 post-election violence face undue difficulties because of the trauma from the last elections. Many IDPs associate voting with violence and displacement: “I am in the tent because I voted; why should I vote if it means this?” 62 Reluctance to participate in the electoral process is not a new phenomenon. The UN Fund for Women (UNIFEM) reported that there was low IDP voter turnout during the 1997 general elections due primarily to trauma from the previous election cycle, which caused displacement. 63 Aside from a fear of violence, some IDPs felt that the government had neglected them; 64 threatening not to vote was a strategy to draw attention to their plight as a constituency of voters. 65 Lack of confidence in the electoral system also led some IDPs to consider boycotting the whole electoral process. 66 Overall, the lack of systematic and detailed data on IDP participation in elections is striking. It is ironic that despite a solid architecture and tradition of international election monitoring globally and in the countries surveyed, the internally displaced—who not only have so much at stake in elections but also tend to be among those who lose out the most—are not a core component of all efforts to monitor and report on elections. A detailed analysis of OSCE election monitoring over several years in all IDP-affected countries shows that even in those cases, monitoring of IDPs’ ability to exercise their right to 61 See further the Kenya case study in chapter 2 of this volume. 62 From an interview with a displaced woman at the Pipeline IDP Camp in Nakuru, 20 November 2010. See the Kenya case study, in chapter 2 of this volume. 63 Prisca Mbura Kamungi, The Lives and Life-Choices of Dispossessed Women in Kenya), UNIFEM–African Women in Crisis Programme (UNIFEM/AFWIC), January 2002. 64 “IDPs Shun Voter Registration, Claim Neglect,” The Standard, 24 March 2010. 65 South Consulting, Status of Implementation Report, October 2010. 66 “Kenya: IDPs to Boycott Voter Registration,” AfricaNews.com, 25 March 2010 (www.africanews.com/site/Kenya_IDPs_to_ boycott_voter_registration/list_messages/30828).
vote is by no means consistent (for example, monitoring is active in Georgia but altogether lacking in Turkey). 67 While the lack of any information on IDPs’ electoral participation in the Central African Republic, Myanmar and Pakistan is perhaps understandable given the political landscape in those countries, there are other cases in which one could expect more reporting on IDP participation. For example, in countries such as Nepal, Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been tremendous political interest in elections, with attention focused on electoral laws, systems, monitoring teams and the substantial international resources allocated to them; each country also has a UN agency (UN Mission in Nepal or UNMIN; UN Assistance Mission for Iraq or UNAMI); and UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan or UNAMA, respectively) dedicated to it to assist with elections and to strengthen the rule of law and the justice system through other measures. Nonetheless, there appears to have been no collection of data on the extent to which IDPs participate in elections even in high-profile cases such as Afghanistan and Iraq. It also is surprising that in countries such as Colombia and Sri Lanka, where there has long been awareness of IDP issues and strong interest in the democratic process, there also has been so little effort to monitor the participation of IDPs in elections. There may be a broader vicious cycle at play in the issue of political participation of IDPs in elections. Even when there are no political or administrative obstacles, IDPs may not vote because they consider national politics to be irrelevant to their lives. But when they do not participate, politicians do not have to respond to their concerns or their displacement seriously. Perhaps the reason that political leaders have not given priority to 67 Mooney and Jarrah, The Voting Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in the OSCE Region; see, in particular, pp. 63–68, “Conclusions and Recommendations,” which found that “the OSCE, both at the policy level and in the field, should devote greater and more systematic attention to the voting rights of IDPs. Particular priority should be given to mainstreaming IDP voting rights into the work of election observation missions and to ensuring that there is systematic monitoring and reporting on the extent to which IDPs are in fact able to vote.” Benchmark 9 Facilitate IDPs’ Participation in Decisionmaking 127 IDP issues—to being more active in adopting needed laws and policies and promoting durable solutions—is that they do not perceive IDPs as a political constituency. Conclusion Across the fifteen countries surveyed, governments performed especially poorly in ensuring IDP participation in decisionmaking. Too often such efforts are limited to information sharing—one-way communication that does not constitute meaningful participation—and often not conducted properly. At best, most of the governments surveyed occasionally consulted with IDPs; however, it was difficult to gauge whether those consultations in fact represented meaningful participation. There is a difference between consultation with IDPs and their participation in decisionmaking; in none of the cases can it be definitively concluded that IDPs were active participants in decisionmaking. However, perhaps more than with other benchmarks, it is difficult to assess without talking with IDPs whether such consultative mechanisms were effective (although some effort was made, particularly in the case studies, to compensate by referring to polls and surveys of IDP opinions, where available). Another important indicator is whether governments take action to remove any specific obstacles that IDPs face, as a result of their displacement, to electoral participation, in particular to exercising their right to vote. Displacement is linked to politics, and those who are displaced are among the most vulnerable as they tend to be already marginalized or discriminated against by their own government. Because of that, it stands to reason that their full political participation in decisionmaking and in elections is not supported by the government. With respect to voting, that is evident in the administrative and bureaucratic obstacles that IDPs face in registering to vote and in their ability to vote in elections even when registered, as examined herein. More difficult to measure is whether IDPs actually view it as valuable to actively participate in the political process when such obstacles are removed.
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The Brookings Institution - London
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From Responsibility to Response: As
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CONTENTS Acronyms .................
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ACRONYMS AIHRC Afghanistan Independ
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FOREWORD It is with great pleasure
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Given the large num
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It is a central tenet of internatio
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legislation relevant to IDPs. Still
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amend existing ones, in line with t
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Background and Aims of the Study In
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displacement persists for several y
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operationalizing the responsibiliti
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Therefore, it is not surprising tha
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Azerbaijani, Chinese, French, Portu
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National Initiatives In Iraq, IOM p
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of the country. 62 In addition, six
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in French and Spanish depending on
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serves only to supplant and absolve
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CHAPTER 1 Assessing National Approa
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Benchmark 1 Benchmark 1 Prevent Dis
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Benchmark 1 Prevent Displacement an
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Benchmark 2 Raise National Awarenes
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Conclusion Benchmark 2 Raise Nation
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Benchmark 3 Data Collection on Inte
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—Current location and location of
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its registration rolls intra-urban
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and profiling of three types of IDP
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the government of Afghanistan under
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Benchmark 4 Training on the Rights
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actions of DRC authorities and nong
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the provision of technical support
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Justice, National Cohesion and Cons
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February 2010; one outcome of the t
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Benchmark 5 Ensure a Legal Framewor
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Conclusion Benchmark 5 Ensure a Leg
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CHAPTER 2 Case Studies Georgia, Ken
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Georgia From Solidarity to Solution
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Kenya National Response to Internal
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Afghanistan Internal Displacement i
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Sri Lanka Gaps in the Government Re
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Domestic Financing Foreign financin
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This study seeks to shed light on h
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CHAPTER 3 Translating National Resp
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For each country case study, the ex
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5 6 Ensure a Legal Framework for Up
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9 9 a) Facilitate IDPs’ Participa
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12 Cooperate with International Com
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The Brookings Institution - London
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From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

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