From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

CHAPTER 1 Assessing National Approaches to Internal Displacement: Findings from 15 Countries
of Hajjah, Al-Jawf, Amran and Sa’ada, disrupting the
delivery of humanitarian assistance to IDPs and other
conflict-affected populations. 37
Conclusion
All of the countries surveyed for this study have engaged
with international organizations and actors. Almost all
have invited the RSG on IDPs to visit and have welcomed
advice and technical expertise in dealing with complex
displacement situations. All have accepted the offers of
international humanitarian organizations to provide
assistance or support to IDPs within their territory (or
in the case of Turkey, development actors). Some have
worked with peacekeeping missions to enhance protection
of civilians. To varying degrees, governments have
facilitated access by international actors to affected
communities. However, restrictions on access to IDPs
remain a serious challenge. In some cases, it is outright
denial of access, whether to IDPs in general (for example,
as in Turkey for many years) or to certain groups
37 OCHA, Yemen: Northern Governorates (Hajjah, Al-
Jawf, Amran and Sa’ada): Humanitarian Access Report,
Cumulative January and February 2011 (http://reliefweb.
int).
174
of IDPs (for example, in Myanmar, engagement with
the international community is extremely limited, if not
nonexistent, with respect to conflict-induced IDPs, but
some cooperation has occurred with respect to those
displaced by disasters). In other cases, permission is
formally granted but denied in practice— for instance,
through bureaucratic delays and restrictions in terms
of travel documents. Often there also are political obstacles,
namely that the government does not have effective
control over certain parts of its territory. Even
then, however, a government should be expected to
allow international humanitarian access to those areas,
as Georgia and, at times, Sri Lanka has done. In such
cases, access also depends on the attitude of the nonstate
authorities that do control the areas, which also
have responsibilities under international humanitarian
law, as stated in Guiding Principle 25, to allow safe and
unimpeded international humanitarian access to IDPs.
And yet, access is a practical requirement to do much
of what is required to assist, protect and secure solutions
for IDPs. Therefore, in cases in which government
capacity or will is inadequate to mount an effective response
to internal displacement—which include many
if not most cases—the importance of the benchmark
regarding cooperation with international humanitarian
organizations cannot be overstated.