From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

Benchmark 10 Establish the Conditions and Provide the Means for IDPs to Secure Durable Solutions
IDPs, including compensation for losses suffered as
a result of displacement, was among the five priority
issues of the peace process (the others were security
arrangements, power sharing, wealth sharing, and justice
and reconciliation). The Doha Process concluded
in July 2011 with a framework agreement between
the government and only the Liberation and Justice
Movement; the agreement cites the Guiding Principles
on Internal Displacement. However, a comprehensive
peace deal will require an agreement among all parties
to the conflict, including in particular the Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation
Movement–Abdel Wahid armed groups.
Especially in the absence of a comprehensive peace
agreement for Darfur, progress toward achieving durable
solutions to displacement inevitably is limited due
to continued insecurity and ongoing problems of safe
and unrestricted humanitarian access to all conflictaffected
areas and populations. Nonetheless, certain
efforts have been made, especially by affirming the
relevance of key international standards and putting in
place mechanisms to ensure that those standards are
observed. In particular, the High-Level Committee for
Darfur, of which the government of Sudan is a member,
agreed to a joint verification mechanism for returns in
October 2009, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on
Internal Displacement and Sudan’s National Policy on
Internally Displaced Persons. 112 IDP returns in Darfur
are monitored and coordinated by the Humanitarian
112 The High-Level Committee for Darfur was established
in 2008 by the “Joint Communiqué on Facilitation of
Humanitarian Activities in Darfur” in 2008. Its members
are the Government of National Unity, the African Union,
UN humanitarian agencies, the League of Arab States, the
European Commission, Russia, the Netherlands, Canada,
the United States, and the United Kingdom. Ministerial
Decree No. 4 of May 2009 strengthened and expanded the
committee. UNMIS, “HLC Joint Press Advisory,” November
2010 (www.unsudanig.org/docs/HLC%20Joint%20
Press%20Advisory%2028%20November%202010.pdf);
Sudanese News Agency, “Sudan: High-Level Committee
on Humanitarian Activities in Darfur Lauds Government
Cooperation,” 21 May 2007 (www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.
nsf/db900sid/SHES-73ER9B?OpenDocument).
149
Aid Commission of the government of Sudan, UN
agencies, the International Organization for Migration,
the United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur
and NGOs. The mechanism was activated in December
2009. Its work has only underscored the severe lack of
the conditions necessary to achieve durable solutions.
In July 2010, reporting on over 100 assessment missions
conducted over five months, the UN Secretary-General
revealed that permanent and durable returns were few
and far between in all three states of Darfur due to
“rural insecurity and land tenure disputes, crop destruction
and a lack of rule of law and basic services in areas
of origin.” 113 Until those issues are resolved, safety is
ensured, and a voluntary choice is offered of possible
solutions—whether return, local integration or resettlement—it
is difficult to envisage meaningful progress in
the search for durable solutions for IDPs and refugees
displaced by the ongoing conflict in Darfur.
In Yemen as elsewhere, the government has promoted
return as the preferred solution for IDPs. In 2009, while
conflict was ongoing, it was reported that IDPs living
in camps had been pressured, either directly or through
the withdrawal of humanitarian assistance, to return. 114
Moreover, many IDPs risked secondary displacement
on returning, as they were going back to destroyed
homes, communities without services, and often a lack
of security due to the absence of government forces and
the presence of land mines and unexploded ordnance. 115
Those conditions also prevented access to income-generating
opportunities, pushing many IDPs into trafficking
and child labor. 116
113 UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on
the African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in
Darfur, S/2010/382, 14 July 2010, para. 39 (www.un.org/
en/peacekeeping/missions/unamid/reports.shtml).
114 IDMC, Yemen: Constrained Response to Protection Needs
of IDPs and Returnees, July 2009, p. 110, available at: www.
internal-displacement.org
115 Ibid; Reuters, “Interview-Yemen donors wary as displaced
slowly return north,” 8 June 2010 (http://uk.reuters.com/
article/2010/06/08/idUKLDE65624G).
116 IDMC, Yemen: Constrained Response to Protection Needs
of IDPs and Returnees, p. 97.