From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

CHAPTER 1 Assessing National Approaches to Internal Displacement: Findings from 15 Countries
Particularly when the IDP population is a sizable percentage
of the national population, even basic care and
maintenance operations can represent a significant
strain on the budget. In Georgia in 2000, the Minister
for Refugees and Accommodation informed Francis
Deng, the Representative of the UN Secretary-General
on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons
(RSG on IDPs), that 15 percent of the state budget that
year was devoted to providing IDPs with assistance to
meet their basic needs. 12 At the time, the majority of
those resources were channelled through the Abkhaz
government in exile to support the system of parallel
structures that it had established and administered
to assist IDPs from Abkhazia (that system has since
ceased operation). A large component of the financial
resources devoted to IDPs in Georgia (it is now almost
two decades since displacement first occurred) is for
the disbursement of the monthly stipend to all IDPs
recognized as having the status, under national legislation,
of “forcibly displaced person–persecuted person.”
The amount of the monthly stipend is minimal. For
many years, it was only 12 GEL (equivalent to less
than $7.00); only recently was it increased, in 2009, to
24 GEL ($13.00). Given the size of the IDP population
(almost a quarter of a million people), that nonetheless
represents a significant expenditure for the government.
Moreover, the stipend is given to all IDPs, regardless of
need. A shift from a status-based to needs-based system
has long been advocated and is recognized in the State
Strategy as a necessary goal. However, little progress has
been made at a policy level.
In addition to allocations for IDP issues in the national
budget, the president at times has chosen to allocate discretionary
funds to addressing IDP issues. In particular,
in 2006 the president launched a multimillion dollar
property registration program called “My Home,” which
used high-tech satellite imagery and thus was resource
12 Author’s notes, mission to Georgia, May 2000; UN
Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Representative
of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons,
Mr. Francis Deng—Addendum: Profiles in Displacement:
Georgia, 2001, para. 110.
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intensive; however, the program has been criticized for
being of minimal legal utility in substantiating property
claims. Currently, the bulk of government resources (as
well as the considerable international funds mobilized
following the August 2008 hostilities) is dedicated to
durable solutions to displacement, in line with the national
IDP strategy.
Supporting durable solutions to displacement requires
significant resources. In Turkey, the government reported
having spent, under the Return to Village Rehabilitation
Project (RVRP), $54 million on infrastructure, social
projects and assistance to returnees between 1999 and
2008 and having allocated an additional $10 million to
the RVRP for 2009. 13 The amount of aid provided by the
RVRP has been criticized as inadequate. 14 The European
Commission reported in October 2009 that progress in
compensation assessments and actual payment of compensation
as provided for in the Law on Compensation
“has been slow” due to “lack of resources and the heavy
workload of the Damage Assessment Commissions.” 15
13 Government of Turkey, October 2009, “Comments of the
Republic of Turkey on the Report Regarding ‘Human Rights
of Minorities’ by Mr. T. Hammarberg, Commissioner for
Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Following His
Visit to Turkey (28 June–3 July 2009),” cited in IDMC,
Turkey: Need for Continued Improvement in Response
to Protracted Displacement: A Profile of the Internal
Displacement Situation, 26 October 2009, p. 11 (www.
internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/
(httpEnvelopes)/E6AF700E502B6D83802570B8005AAF9
C?OpenDocument#49.12.1).
14 Human Rights Watch, “Still Critical”: Prospects in 2005
for Internally Displaced Kurds in Turkey, March 2005,
(www.hrw.org); 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, Internal
Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)/Turkish
Economic and Social Studies Foundation, June 2006, p. 11
(www.internal-displacement.org).
15 European Commission, Turkey 2009 Progress Report
Accompanying the Communication from the Commission
to the European Parliament and the Council: Enlargement