From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

Georgia From Solidarity to Solutions: The Government Response to Internal Displacement in Georgia
person of the commission. 112 The resulting strategy
designated the MRA as responsible for performing “the
leading role, responsibility and coordination function
for the elaboration of programs and monitoring
outcomes of their implementation” related to the State
Strategy on IDPs. 113 In December 2008, the MRA’s responsibilities
for the State Strategy were updated and
elaborated to include developing a revised action plan
for implementation of the strategy with an emphasis on
its second goal, improving the living conditions of IDPs
in their place of displacement. 114
Historically, however, the MRA has underperformed as
the national institutional focal point for addressing internal
displacement. In particular, the ministry has been
constrained by weak institutional capacity and limited
political leverage within the government. Indeed, until
only very recently, the MRA could have been described
as a “caretaker” ministry, focused mainly on care and
maintenance issues—namely disbursing IDPs’ monthly
allowance and supervising management of the collective
centers—even more than a decade after displacement
first occurred. In line with government policy emphasizing
exclusively the right to return, MRA was inactive
in advocating for more durable solutions for IDPs—for
instance, improved shelter and socioeconomic conditions,
enhanced self-reliance, and the possibility of local
integration.
At the same time, the MRA’s role as the focal point institution
for IDPs was undermined by the strong and
active role played until recently by the so-called Abkhaz
government in exile. Following the mass displacement
from Abkhazia in 1993–94, the government, including
elected officials as well as administrative staff, that had
112 Government of Georgia, Decree No. 80, On Establishing
Government Commission for Elaborating the State Strategy
for Internally Displaced Persons–Persecuted Persons, 23
February 2006.
113 Government of Georgia, State Strategy, Chapter VII.
114 Government of Georgia, Decree No. 854, On Making
Additions to Ordinance No. 47 as of 2 February 2007 on
Approving State Strategy for Internally Displaced Persons, 4
December 2008.
203
been in place in Abkhazia effectively was reconstituted,
now based in Georgia proper. The Abkhaz government
in exile was actively involved in supporting the statelevel
response; in fact, each ministry or department of
the central Georgian government allowed its counterpart
from the government in exile to use its facilities.
Activities in which the Abkhaz government in exile
actively engaged included disbursing the monthly stipend
to IDPs; facilitating family tracing; allocating
shelter to IDPs; distributing humanitarian assistance;
and providing health services and education, including
through “exile” schools that reconstituted schools
based on the children’s place of origin and even employed
the same teacher. The Abkhaz government in
exile also maintained its own military commissariat,
tax authorities, police force, and so forth, 115 although
some of these entities, including the police force in
exile, were disbanded after the Rose Revolution of 2003.
That parallel system of services had certain advantages
in terms of preserving IDPs’ links to their community
of origin as well as providing employment for displaced
civil servants, including teachers, but especially after
displacement became protracted, it did not facilitate
IDPs’ integration into the local communities in their
place of displacement. The government in exile also
exerted strong political influence, on both IDPs and the
central government, advocating a hard line approach
that emphasized return only, and until 2004, the central
Georgian government officially recognized the exiled
government of Abkhazia as the political representative
of the displaced (see Benchmark 9b). In practice as
well as perception, it supplanted the MRA in terms of
several core responsibilities toward IDPs and eclipsed
the MRA in terms of leading the government response
115 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, paras. 19, 53, 55; Julia
Kharashvili, “Georgia: Coping by Organizing. Displaced
Georgians from Abkhazia,” in Caught Between Borders:
Response Strategies of the Internally Displaced, edited by
Marc Vincent and Birgitte Refslund Sorensen (London:
Pluto Press), pp. 234–35.