IDMC Global Overview Launch: Statement by Sir John Holmes UN Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Chatham House, London 17 May 2010

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues,

Thank you very much to the IDMC for inviting me again to join Elisabeth to launch this year's Global Overview. The Overview, and the analysis and advocacy work that IDMC does throughout the year, are invaluable in helping those of us caught up in the urgency of response to understand the trends and the sheer scale of the challenge that internal displacement poses globally. As the Overview makes clear, so many internal displacement situations around the world are long-term, and the report helps make sure these issues stay on the agenda. In years like 2009 when there were so many new conflict-related displacements - on a horrific scale as Elisabeth has already spelled out - it is hard to keep decision makers focused on finding durable solutions to protracted crises not in the forefront of media attention. I congratulate IDMC on this aspect of their work, as well as for focusing our attention on the needs of the most vulnerable.

In the over three years I have spent as Emergency Relief Coordinator, internal displacement has been a key feature of almost every one of the humanitarian crises I have been called on to deal with - whether related to natural disasters, armed conflict, or political violence.

Each context is different, but the physical and psychological suffering of the victims is the same, from the DRC to Colombia to Kenya to Yemen. And the term IDPs and the jargon we use do not come close to doing justice to the truly awful experience of being displaced - disoriented, traumatised, confused, fearful, disempowered, dependent, helpless. The adjectives abound but still do not convey the full misery involved.

It is alarming that we are talking about 6.8 million people newly displaced in 2009, mostly by chronic internal armed conflicts. This tells us not just that humanitarian needs are greater now than ever, but also that our worst-case projections of where humanitarian trends would go in the next few years are materialising. The majority of humanitarian work - around 70 percent - is currently related to the humanitarian consequences of conflict. Unfortunately we have been expecting these needs to keep growing, as new internal conflicts appear, with particularly serious impact on civilians caught in the middle of them, as we saw last year for example in Pakistan and Yemen, and in new twists to old conflict situations as with the Lord's Resistance Army in north-east DRC. And we have been right in these predictions. However we have also been expecting demands for humanitarian work to grow because of chronic and increasingly acute vulnerability caused by global trends such as climate change, the recent global food crisis, which has not gone away at all in many poor developing countries, population growth in many poor parts of the world, demographic shifts causing many more people to live in high risk areas, rapidly growing urbanization, land, water and energy scarcities, and disturbance to key ecosystems. And again these expectations are becoming reality. All this underscores why we need to keep track of displacement as a barometer of how global trends really are impacting on the most vulnerable and marginalised people.

What does this mean for those of us here today, thinking about how we can best support humanitarian work for displaced people - and most desirable of all, to prevent displacement happening?

There is much about internal displacement that is out of our hands in the short term -the underlying causes are realities unlikely to disappear soon. But there are areas where we can make a difference and where I think the collective efforts of the humanitarian community, and of groups like IDMC, are starting to register some improvements.

For example, as a humanitarian community we have done much to improve our understanding of the challenges we face because of displacement and to tailor our responses accordingly. Humanitarian response programmes, generously supported by donors around the world, continue to reach millions of those displaced by conflicts, droughts, floods, storms, and other disasters, even if on occasion we still face severe challenges of access to those in need. We have increased our capacity to meet the immediate emergency needs of displaced people and of the communities that host them for food, water, shelter, health services, education and other areas, and improved the way in which humanitarian actors work together to provide these services. Strengthened coordination through the cluster approach, improved humanitarian leadership, more inclusive partnerships and more reliable funding have all made a difference.

Reinforcing sanitation and drainage systems in congested camps at risk of flooding in northern Sri Lanka, facilitating provision of cash "smart cards" to IDPs in north-west Pakistan, and providing emergency shelter kits and NFI sets to IDPs in camps in Mindanao - just some examples of timely, relevant, innovative and effective humanitarian action in 2009.

The earthquake in Haiti in January 2010 also demonstrated that the humanitarian community is now able to respond in ways unimaginable even five years ago when the Asian tsunami happened, for example through effective use of the cluster approach. At the same time, we are also learning from the Haiti earthquake some very important lessons about gaps still to be filled, for example, about dealing with need and displacement in urban settings, and about the staff capacity and resources needed to respond.

However we have all said repeatedly - I said it myself at this launch last year but it bears repeating - that we simply cannot continue to treat this as a problem to be dealt with exclusively by the international community. In the new displacements in 2009 we saw as always host communities taking up the vast majority of the burden, for example in Pakistan where around 90% of IDPs stayed in a host family or community. The situation in Yemen was similar, with the vast majority staying outside organised camps. In both of those contexts the international community worked very closely with the local and national authorities to determine how best we could support local efforts and solutions, for example by providing services through "hubs" rather than just in camps. That interaction with national actors and better understanding of the local context are absolutely essential if we are to make sure we are giving the right kind of assistance and advice and help. Haiti, with its hundreds of so-called spontaneous camps, is also testing us in this regard too.

Above all, for all we have achieved, we must still do much more to end internal displacement - to help IDPs find a durable solution to their plight. The imperative to do this is obvious - ending displacement means these vulnerable groups have a chance to rebuild their lives, support themselves, their families and their communities, and avoid and end debilitating dependence on humanitarian assistance. Displacement also creates an unacceptable burden on the communities that host IDPs, many of whom are themselves in need of humanitarian or development assistance, and can easily create damaging jealousies and resentments. Furthermore, protracted displacement, and the marginalization that results, can have serious political, security and financial implications for national governments. As we have seen around the world, failure to resolve displacement inevitably undermines national efforts aimed at long-term peace and stability in post-crisis countries. Only when we have assisted people to find a truly durable solution, whether through returning home where they are, or being relocated elsewhere, should we consider that we have done our job. Of course this depends on the conditions being right. For example, IDPs in Darfur desperately need and want to go home but political and security progress has to be there to make that possible, rather than government pressure to go home on the pretence that all is now well.

For any of the solution options to be genuinely lasting, they must be voluntary, safe and dignified. We have learned from bitter experience that if these conditions are not met, IDPs will remain vulnerable to violence, discrimination and poverty, and at serious risk of re-displacement.

Sadly, as noted in the Global Overview, in places like Bosnia Herzegovina, Colombia, and Iraq last year, these conditions for return were not met and the outcomes were not what was needed.

The African Union Convention on Protection and Assistance for Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, opened for ratification at the AU Summit in Uganda in October 2009, was a major symbolic step forward by African States, not least because it recognized that displacement, whether because of conflict or natural disasters, is not inevitable, and that states have a clear responsibility to prevent it happening as far as possible, and to afford distinct rights to IDPs. Of course, the true measure of the success of the Summit and the Convention will be when we start to see a reduction in the scale of displacement on the continent, and more effective solutions for those who have been displaced - and above all an end to the enormous suffering that this has brought to so many people in Africa. Durable solutions are needed urgently for the 11.6 million conflict-induced IDPs on the continent, as well as the millions more displaced by regular disasters and other causes.

For 2010, which I fear will be just as difficult as 2009, strengthening engagement in durable solutions, not just by humanitarians but also by political and development actors alike, must be a top priority. Humanitarian actors need to take a fresh look at how they support affected governments and authorities - they hold the key to making solutions truly 'durable'. Ensuring that dealing with internal displacement is a major component of any peace agreement or conflict management initiative, of development planning processes, and of disaster risk reduction and preparedness measures, needs to become much more second nature than it is now. Particularly important is to ensure that IDPs themselves have a real say in the political and development decisions that affect their lives.

Let me conclude with one final critical point. We also need to start to make a reality of looking to the particular needs of women and girls, and other particularly vulnerable groups, in displacement contexts, rather than just paying lip service to it. The need for "disaggregated data" on displacement is perhaps the least catchy slogan ever devised, but the substance is crucial.

Let's do much better here in 2010.

Thank you.