(Special Rapporteur Beyani is participating in a roundtable hosted by USAID Deputy Administrator Steinberg on March 22. USAID supports the work of the Special Rapporteur through the Brookings-London School of Economics (LSE) Project on Internal Displacement.)
As a reader of this blog, I invite and challenge you to do more in a personal capacity to join efforts and work daily to advance human rights in the world and enhance international development or peacebuilding efforts. The more you and do so the more we will realize that there is a multiplying force of reliable partners in achieving tangible and lasting results.
For the most part of my life, I have been involved in human rights work in various capacities. But the past year and a half saw me assume the role of an independent expert with responsibility for maintaining and continuing to advance the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). I inherited the mandate from two pioneers in the field of internal displacement, Francis Deng and Walter Kälin, and have done my best to continue building upon previous achievements towards protecting and assisting IDPs. And I believe that Francis and Walter would agree that as the mandate reaches its 20th anniversary this year that much has been accomplished, but much remains to be done.
It is clear that since the beginning of the international community’s response to internal displacement, it has been the collective action of dedicated civil society organizations, government agencies, supportive donors, key scholars and academics, and passionate advocates for change that have made the difference. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement are the bedrock upon which much has been built, and they are a product of teamwork. Other landmark documents and normative frameworks, including the Framework for Durable Solutions (which outlines the necessary criteria to end displacement) and the African Union’s Kampala Convention (the first binding regional treaty on IDPs), are similarly products of dedicated and collaborative efforts.
The unfortunate truth is that despite tremendous progress, today there are still some 27 million IDPs around the world who have fled situations of armed conflict or human rights abuses. Many millions more are displaced each year by natural disasters, development projects, and increasingly, the effects of climate change. The Guiding Principles outline the basic steps necessary to prevent, respond to, and bring an end to internal displacement, but their application into national legal policy frameworks remains a challenging objective.
My current goals as Special Rapporteur and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement include continuing to promote the Guiding Principles and other normative frameworks for advancing assistance and protection to IDPs; expanding the scope of the international community’s understanding of IDPs beyond camp settings to the vast majority of IDPs who live outside designated settlements; focusing our collective energies on what can be done for women IDPs, particularly in regard to (re)generating livelihoods; and expanding the appreciation of, and response to, the increasingly damaging effects of climate change as a cause of displacement.
I believe that USAID and other development partners will continue to play an important role in advancing this ambitious agenda, including through its continuing support of the Brookings-LSE Project. Among other aspects of its work, USAID in particular has been a strong supporter of the Project’s work on human rights-based responses to natural disasters and dissemination of key publications and research.
Knowing that USAID, and hopefully you the reader, champion the cause of assistance to IDPs as well is an important first step in maintaining and expanding the network of likeminded individuals and organizations necessary to continue the march towards the full and unflinching fulfilment of the human rights of IDPs and vulnerable populations everywhere. I sincerely thank you for contributing to our collective efforts and look forward to working with you—in whatever capacity you can offer –on this most important endeavour.
I was greatly interested to read this blog, and it is something that I am really passionate about. As a relatively new NGO in the country of Georgia, our environmental education and film making work brings together young people aged 8-24 from a variety of schools and universities, currently only in Tbilisi, but we have several IDPs from Abkhazia and South Ossettia, and two orphans in our group. We are also the first to offer the International Award for Young people in Georgia (known as Duke of Edinburgh’s award in Britain), currently offered to some 7million young people from more than 130 countries.
We have already applied for funding to extend our work to include Roma and street children and orphanages, and have a pioneering project to bring young people from Georgia, South Ossettia, and Abhazia together, with other young people from around the world including IDPs affected by climate change, whilst undertaking scientific research expeditions with Earthwatch Institute.
As Founder and Director of of NGO, I am planning to row across the Pacific Ocean between May and December next year to raise funds and awareness of IDPs and to outreach work at the places I visit on the way. I will be starting my row in San Francisco, stopping at Hawaii, Fijii, and Samoa due to tides and cyclones, and ending in Cairns, Australia.
As a new NGO it can be really hard to apply for grants, especially as most trusts want three years worth of bank statements. We currently have 80 young people, and they are raising their own funds for activities such as our expeditions, which is difficult to do in Georgia, especially when they come from some of the poorest families in the country. We rely entirely on ‘in kind’ donations at present even though we are registered as an NGO and have a charity bank account.
But, I’m personally driven by the young people I work with, and their desire to do good for others and to look after the planet. As part of their award, they spend one hour per week giving time to their respective communities, challenging themselves, and working together. That is incredibly inspirational, and our project is constantly driven by their ideas and creativity.
Thanks for sharing this blog, and the work of USAID as it gives a lot of people hope, and is nice to read about items that I am passionate about. Good luck with your efforts and great work.
Sarah
Hello and thank you for this article. So-called environmentally induced migration is multi-level problem. According to Essam El-Hinnawi definition form 1985 environmental refugees as those people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural or triggered by people) that jeopardised their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life. The fundamental distinction between `environmental migrants` and `environmental refugees` is a standpoint of contemporsry studies in EDPs.
According to Bogumil Terminski it seems reasonable to distinguish the general category of environmental migrants from the more specific (subordinate to it) category of environmentally displaced people.
According to Norman Myers environmental refugees are “people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems, together with associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty”.