From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

CHAPTER 2 Case Studies: Georgia, Kenya, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka
needs and of the national regulatory framework for addressing
their needs and ensuring protection of their
rights. 65 To address this gap, NRC Georgia developed a
training program targeting authorities working on IDPrelated
issues to raise their awareness of the Guiding
Principles on Internal Displacement and of national legislation
of particular relevance to the protection of IDPs’
rights. In addition, through its legal program, NRC has
regularly included MRA staff from central and regional
levels in training events on national IDP legislation
as well as the Guiding Principles. At the same time,
UNHCR began to increase and systematically integrate
IDP issues and the Guiding Principles into its training
activities, including those for government officials, in
particular for the MRA. 66 In January 2010, regional staff
of the MRA and the staff of a new IDP unit established
within the Office of the Public Defender participated
in a joint training workshop on the Guiding Principles
and other IDP protection issues; training was provided
by the Council of Europe and UNHCR, with contributions
by NRC on monitoring the rights of IDPs (see
Benchmark 8). The Council of Europe also organized
a series of training workshops for senior MRA staff on
community cohesion, which addressed the importance
of facilitating IDPs’ integration into the communities in
which they currently reside. 67
In addition to training on the Guiding Principles and
the national legal framework for the protection of the
rights of IDPs (see Benchmark 5), a number of training
initiatives for authorities have been undertaken or recommended
on certain thematic or technical issues relevant
to the realization of IDPs’ rights. Indeed, mapping
65 IDMC, “Enhancing NRC’s Capacity to Develop Training
on the Protection of IDPs,” international workshop for
NRC field staff, Tbilisi, Georgia, 20–24 January 2006
(www.internal-displacement.org).
66 Author’s notes, Tbilisi 2006–07 (when deployed to
UNHCR to provide technical assistance on IDP issues to
the MRA); and interviews conducted in 2009–10 as part
of a USAID-FORECAST technical assistance project for
MRA.
67 E-mail correspondence with former MRA official, June
2011.
192
and addressing the training needs of MRA staff was a
significant component of an eighteen-month USAID
technical assistance program to the MRA from 2009
through July 2010. Priority areas identified and addressed
through mentoring and training activities were
strategic leadership and secretariat functions in chairing
the Steering Committee on IDP Issues, communications
(both internal and external, in particular with IDPs and
international partners), program planning and management,
and an in-depth training program for Legal
Department staff on legislative drafting, legislative techniques,
administrative and civil procedural legislation
and court proceeding issues related to IDPs. 68 In March
2011 in Shida Kartli, UNHCR organized training on the
recently adopted standard operating procedures regulating
relocation of IDPs (see Benchmarks 5 and 10);
participants included not only MRA staff but also members
of the police forces. UNHCR and NRC plan to hold
a training workshop in September 2011 focused on the
Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Framework
on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons
(which NRC translated into Georgian in 2010); officials
from the MRA and the Public Defender’s Office will
participate.
In addition, the MRA has sought training in disaster
and other emergency preparedness and response
procedures, recalling the challenges that MRA and
the government as a whole experienced when caught
off guard by the massive humanitarian crisis that resulted
from the renewal of conflict in August 2008. 69
Since then the first deputy minister has attended international
training on this issue and senior MRA
staff have participated in intragovernment national
disaster preparedness exercises. The extent to which
68 Hovey and Mooney, Technical Assistance to the Ministry
for Refugees and Accommodation report, July 2010. On
the legal training program, see also Civil Society Institute,
“Training programme for the Legal Department Staff of
the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the
Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of
Georgia,” (www.civilin.org/Eng/viewtopic.php?id=61).
69 Interviews by author and Guy Hovey with MRA officials,
February 2009.