ANGOLA: Report highlights gaps in response to IDP needs

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 21 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - A new report on the management of providing assistance and protection to internally displaced persons (IDPs) has highlighted several gaps in current aid programming.

A comprehensive report by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) found that "more than 24 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) lack satisfactory judicial protection" in countries across the globe, as in Angola for instance, where civil war displaced thousands of people.

The report, 'Support to Internally Displaced Persons - Learning from Evaluations', urged donors to support agencies responding to the needs of IDPs.

"This problem has been known for some time, but now donor organisations are seeing how widespread the gaps are from an IDP perspective. The report gives a strong basis for improving the situation for IDPs around the world," said Stefan Dahlgren, of Sida's evaluation division.

Based on assessments conducted in 10 countries during a two-year period, the report paints a holistic picture of the situation in which the world's 24 million IDPs find themselves. It also highlights the problems donor organisations have in providing "effective and judicial protection" to them, revealing gaps in donor coordination and a frequent lack of needs analyses.

The international community was usually quick to deliver support in the form of food and blankets, the report noted, but often neglected the need of IDPs for protection of their rights and from criminal acts and violence.

The study is the result of cooperation among the six bilateral donor organisations in Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, the USA and Sweden, as well as four multilateral organisations: UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organisation (WHO), Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO). The entire assessment programme was led by the evaluation department of Danish International Development agency Danida, while Sida produced the final report.

Some of the main areas of concern were a lack of coordination by donors and aid agencies in responding to the needs of IDPs, including their need for protection and assistance.

"In 2001 Angola became the first country to incorporate the Guiding Principles [on Internal Displacement] into domestic law, and several countries have followed suit or incorporated the guiding principles into their cooperation agreements with UN agencies. However, there are many countries that have yet to incorporate the guiding principles. Experience in Angola and Colombia shows that incorporating the guiding principles into domestic law does not necessarily lead to better government policies, or to automatic improvements in the rights of IDPs, but at least there is legislation in place against which governments can be held to account," the report commented.

The study recommended that "donors should ensure that sufficient support is being provided to the Representative of the UN Secretary General and human rights organisations, in order to significantly increase the number of countries incorporating the Guiding Principles into domestic law".

Additionally, "donors, UN agencies and NGOs should ensure that sufficient support is being provided to national civil society organisations in raising awareness of IDP rights under domestic law, and strengthening civil society's ability (where possible including IDPs themselves) to hold government to account".

"Donor governments have a particularly important and influential role to play, through coordinated advocacy, to ensure that national authorities are held to account where they fall short of the Guiding Principles or international human rights and humanitarian law," the report concluded.

DONOR AND AGENCY COORDINATION

Over the last decade the UN system has taken the view that a coordinated, 'collaborative approach' was the preferred model for effectively meeting the protection and assistance needs of IDPs.

"The collaborative approach has encountered resistance from various quarters, including some UN agencies and donor organisations. On more than one occasion (but particularly during 2000), the model of a dedicated or lead agency (most probably based in or around [the UN refugee agency] UNHCR) has been championed, but eventually been rejected in favour of the collaborative approach. In 2002 an Internal Displacement Unit was created within OCHA to encourage and support the collaborative approach," the authors explained.

In 2004, following an evaluation of the Internal Displacement Unit that was critical of its lack of impact on the UN system, the Unit was upgraded to the status of Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division.

The report noted that where OCHA had been responsible for overall coordination in relation to IDPs, "based on OCHA's experience in Angola, it would seem to work best when: it is able to control a significant resource 'pot' (such as an Emergency Response Fund), and encourage and support implementing agencies to undertake programmes in particular areas or sectors; it has the respect and support of donors; it has a field presence at a provincial level that enables it to be knowledgeable about the local context, and to provide coordination and support services to the implementing agencies closer to the actual area or operations".

Within the framework of the collaborative approach, UNHCR, "with its substantial operational capacity and expertise in the provision of assistance and protection, can perform very effectively in the role of IDP lead agency".

"However, this is dependent on the extent to which it is prepared to fully embrace the lead agency role. It appears only prepared to do so when it is assured of consent by the host government and adequate resources for it to undertake the role. Whilst UNHCR's insistence on determining for itself those situations in which it will take on the lead role is understandable, it introduces a significant area of unpredictability into the coordination arrangements," the study found.

Meanwhile, donor organisations were "not doing nearly enough to support coordination mechanisms, whether for overall humanitarian efforts or those specifically relating to IDPs. Indeed, in several respects donor funding behaviours actively undermine coordination
efforts within the UN system. The Consolidated Appeals process is a principal mechanism for achieving a coordinated response but they are consistently underfunded, even though donors declare their commitment to the process. This forces UN agencies to undertake constant reprioritisation of their proposed activities - a process that introduces or increases competitive behaviours between the agencies," the report pointed out.

Helena Fraser, of the Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division in OCHA Geneva, told IRIN that "we very much welcome the focus of the report, which is mainly on donors' support to IDP programmes and the collaborative approach to internal displacement".

"There's been a lot of scrutiny and discussion of the weakness of the collaborative approach from the perspective of the UN agencies. This is first report we've seen where the focus is mostly on donors, and whether they're supporting agencies to implement a cooperative collaborative approach. The report finds that donor policies and practices on IDP rights, protection and responses are either not sufficiently clear, or sufficiently supportive, to the implementing agencies," Fraser said.

"For example, on protection, donors are asked to clarify their policies, and provide clearer direction to country desks and country missions on how to improve protection for IDPs. Donors are criticised as 'not doing nearly enough' to support coordination efforts on IDPs, and they are urged to use funding allocations to make the collaborative approach work better, including by improving incentives for positive collaborative behaviour," she added.

Donors were urged to support and participate in "all efforts to promote collaborative approach", she pointed out.

"In terms of criticisms of agencies and institutional arrangements, there is indeed criticism of OCHA saying that its coordination role on IDPs works best where it controls resources - like an emergency response fund in Angola - and where it has donors' direct support and an extensive field presence. The situation in Liberia was criticised, where UNHCR and OCHA were supposedly 'bickering'," Fraser noted. "OCHA recognises the challenges in implementing the collaborative approach, and is working in partnership with donors and implementing operational agencies to strengthen the response to protection and assistance needs of IDPs in the field."

[ENDS]