From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

Benchmark 1 Prevent Displacement and Minimize Its Adverse Effects
systems are in place, but they were overwhelmed by
the 2010 monsoon rains; flood warning systems are
dated and unreliable. Further, as the National Disaster
Management Authority (NDMA) and government of
Pakistan admitted after the 2010 floods, Pakistan’s predisaster
capacity was limited in terms of capacity and
financial resources—the NDMA had twenty-one staff
and a budget of only $0.74 million—and its efforts in
disaster management were equally hampered by such
factors. 34 According to initial reports, the floods affected
up to 18 million people and some 6 million were in need
of shelter; by September, 1.8 million were reported in
IDP camps, with the number declining to slightly over
124,000 in January 2011. 35 Following the 2010 floods,
the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
launched a program for training and flood forecasting
for Pakistan. 36 Pakistan’s warning systems for tsunamis
and other ocean-related hazards are weak, and the
government has received assistance to develop systems,
specifically a tsunami early warning system, from the
UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
aspx).
34 National Disaster Management Authority, Government
of Pakistan, Pakistan 2010 Flood Relief: Learning from
Experience: Observations and Opportunities (www.
ndma.gov.pk/Documents/flood_2010/lesson_learned/
Pakistan%202010%20Flood%20Relief-Learning%20
from%20Experience.pdf). Damage estimates through
2006 from Government of Pakistan, National Disaster
Risk Management Framework for Pakistan, February
2007, p. 14; figures for 2010 from the World Bank and
Asian Development Bank, “ADB-WB Assess Pakistan
Flood Damage at $9.7 Billion,” Press Release 2011/134/
SAR, 14 October 2010 (http://web.worldbank.org/
WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22733
998~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.
html?cid=ISG_E_WBWeeklyUpdate_NL)
35 For the number of people affected by the floods, see
Emergency Events Database EM-DAT, Centre for
Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Université
Catholique de Louvain, Brussels (www.emdat.be); for
shelter and displacement numbers, see OCHA, Pakistan
Monsoon Floods, Situation Report No. 23, 9 September
2010; see also OCHA, Pakistan Humanitarian Bulletin No.
13, 12–20 January 2011 (http://reliefweb.int).
36 NASA, “NASA’s Pouring Funds, Scientists, and Satellites
into Pakistan Flood Warning,” 28 October 2010 (http://
blogs.nasa.gov).
29
Conclusion
Preventing displacement is the most important step that
a government can take in exercising its responsibility to
protect internally displaced persons. Yet it also is probably
the most difficult and the least likely to be taken,
both by national authorities and by the international
community. 37
This study looked only at countries that already were
experiencing internal displacement—and large-scale
displacement at that. Hence, it likely excludes other—
more successful—cases in which governments were
able to effectively safeguard populations from being displaced.
Some of the countries surveyed may have prevented
further displacement, such as Kenya, or, through
targeted interventions, Colombia, but that conclusion is
difficult to draw. However, governments can and should
be expected to take certain steps to prevent forced displacement.
These include a range of actions, from preventing
conflict to establishing early warning systems to
criminalizing in national legislation (in particular, the
penal code) the act of causing arbitrary displacement.
37 See recommendations for international agencies, NGOs
and government authorities to address this gap in Inter-
Agency Standing Committee, Handbook for the Protection
of Internally Displaced Persons (June 2010), pp. 141–43.