WUNRN
IDP’s – INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS - Refugees, whose rights
are enshrined in the 1951 UN convention, have a different legal status to IDPs,
whose rights are a little less clear-cut. Governments maintain responsibility
for IDPs - who are their citizens - and there is a non-binding set
of principles for IDPs but aid agencies complement, and in many
cases lead, that response. UNHCR – UN Refugee Agency: “IDPs have not crossed an
international border to find sanctuary but have remained inside their home
countries. Even if they have fled for similar reasons as refugees (armed
conflict, generalized violence, human rights violations), IDPs legally remain
under the protection of their own government – even though that government
might be the cause of their flight.”
REFUGEES - For refugees, aid agencies work in “sectors” (e.g.
protection, food security, education, shelter, WASH), under the leadership of
UNHCR. UN Refugee Agency: “The
1951 Refugee Convention spells out that a refugee is someone who "owing to
a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,
nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is
outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such
fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."
http://www.irinnews.org/report/100835/analysis-refugee-or-idp-does-it-really-matter
REFUGEES VS. INTERNALLY
DISPLACED PERSONS/IDP’S– CLARIFICATION ON LEGAL STATUS & ON SERVICES –
WOMEN & CHILDREN
Syrian
refugees and Iraq displaced often receive separate services despite similar
needs. Photo: Cathy Otten/IRIN
By
Louise Redvers
ERBIL, 13 November 2014 (IRIN) - At Harsham camp on the northern
edge of Erbil, internally displaced Iraqi families who fled Mosul and its
surrounding villages to escape Islamist militants stock their tents with
donated blankets and warm clothes in preparation for the fast-advancing winter.
At the Kawergosk camp, 25km away, Syrian refugees are doing the same. Yet their
winter kits and food parcels will mostly likely contain different items and be
delivered by different teams funded by different donors.
Both groups are fleeing what the international community now views as the same
crisis, yet due to UN protocols and how funding is allocated, internally
displaced persons (IDPs) from Iraq and refugees from Syria are being supported
by, in some cases, completely separate programmes - despite their similar needs
and geographical proximity.
This duplication is prompting experts to call for a rethink on how
organizations in Iraq - and elsewhere - respond to dual caseloads of IDPs and
refugees, with a strong push to prioritize based upon need rather than status.
A root cause
Iraq is hosting more than 220,000 Syrian refugees
and since January 1.9 million
nationals have been uprooted due to the territorial advance of militants
calling themselves the Islamic State.
Nearly all the Syrian refugees and around half of the Iraqi IDPs are in the
semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan
where the issues of parallel programming are most evident.
Fabio Forgione, head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Iraq,
told IRIN how a new maternity unit his organization had opened in Domiz refugee
camp in Dohuk was currently only accessible by Syrians, and not open to
displaced Iraqis sheltering nearby.
“Services are running in parallel all over, particularly when it comes to
camps, because Iraqi IDPs are not allowed to enter Syrian refugee camps,” he
explained.
Although acknowledging the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan was “unique”, and not
all programming could be shared because resources had to be rationalized,
Forgione said: “Our idea is to be able to put a referral system in place in the
areas that we work to give access to some IDPs and priority cases… and this is
what we are trying to negotiate at the moment.”
The NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI), an umbrella body of local and
international organizations, is also calling for a more joined-up response.
“As the humanitarian response should be needs-based, there is no valid reason
to differentiate between aid for IDPs or refugees,” said Hashim Assaf, NCCI’s
executive coordinator.
“Both of these groups are residing in the same locations and require the same
urgent humanitarian aid… [and] the current differentiation could create gaps or
duplication in the humanitarian response and coordination efforts,” he added,
calling for a “more integrated approach for the Iraq and Syria response”.
Refugees, whose rights are enshrined in the 1951 UN convention, have a
different legal status to IDPs, whose rights are a little less clear-cut.
Governments maintain responsibility for IDPs - who are their citizens - and
there is a non-binding set
of principles for IDPs but aid agencies complement, and in many
cases lead, that response.
Sectors and clusters
In Iraq the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is
leading the UN agencies to support the IDPs, using what is known as a “cluster system”,
while the refugee caseload is led by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) under a
so-called “sector system”.
“Clusters” are groups of UN and non-UN organisations, including NGOs,
responsible for coordination of humanitarian response, led by a Resident
Coordinator and/or Humanitarian Coordinator and the Humanitarian Country Team.
But for refugees, aid agencies work in “sectors” (e.g. protection, food
security, education, shelter, WASH), under the leadership of UNHCR.
In the case of Iraq, donor money is allocated either to the Syrian refugee
sectorial response or the Iraqi displacement clusters. This was the case of the
recent US$500million donation to the UN by Saudi Arabia, which specified the
money was only to be used for Iraqi IDPs, not Syrian refugees.
However, while programme distinctions can be clear-cut, often they are not.
Rebecca Dibb, programme director for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in
Iraq, which works with both Syrian refugees and Iraqi IDPs, gave an example of
when things are more blurred.
“In Erbil we are starting a new shelter rehabilitation project in the poorer
areas of the city, where we are looking to improve conditions for Syrian
refugees who are renting there,” she explained. “However, living among the
Syrian refugees are IDPs… even more in need and vulnerable. It’s hard to know
how to balance that.”
Dibb called on donors to be more flexible about how they allocate their funds.
“It can be a tough situation to manage when you have
specific donor requirements for certain caseloads of beneficiaries,” she said.
“You can’t just talk to and help one family and ignore the other one next door.
We believe the focus should be about vulnerabilities.”
Dawn Chatty, professor of anthropology and forced migration at the Department
of International Development at the University of Oxford, also questioned the
practice of allocating aid according to “on-paper labels”.
“Why are we making certain kinds of distinctions between what assistance we
give to a group that has a particular label and another group that doesn’t have
that label, when they are both actually fleeing the same crisis?” she asked.
“In Iraq you had the case of the Iraqi Yazidis who fled Mount Sinjar. Many of
them became refugees when they crossed into Syria, but then when they crossed
back into Iraqi Kurdistan, they were re-categorized as IDPs, which rather makes
a nonsense of these categories being so rigidly adhered to.”
She added: “Not everyone wants to be called a refugee,” she said. “Many people
crossing into countries like Turkey prefer to be called muhajir(migrant). They
are not interested in third country re-settlement; what they want is some
temporary protection and to sustain themselves until they can go back home.
“People being displaced internally are in the same position and I think the
international humanitarian and refugee regime has got to do a lot of thinking
about this.”
A four-page joint policy document
issued in April this year by UNHCR and OCHA was designed to address the
problems of co-ordination in situations where you have both IDPs and refugees.
It distinguishes between contexts where IDPs and other affected populations are
“geographically separate from refugees” and when they are “geographically
mixed”.
When the communities are not mixed, there should be separate “clusters” and
“sectors”, the document says, but it is less specific when the communities are
geographically mixed. In this case the guidance is: “In all circumstances the
inter-cluster co-ordinator and the UNHCR refugee co-ordinator share information
and ensure mutually reinforcing approaches.”
The paper also makes no reference to donor funding, which many see as being at
the heart of this problem of parallel programming.
Daryl Grisgraber, senior advocate for Washington-based advocacy NGO Refugees
International, said: “You can end up with two different systems because the two
different populations are being funded separately even though they do have many
of the same needs.”
Starting to adapt
One major donor does seem to be listening to concerns from agencies about
parallel funding streams and associated inefficiencies.
“For us, the point of entry for principled humanitarian action remains the needs
of affected populations; whoever they are, wherever they are,” said Javier
Rio-Navarro, Iraq head of office for European Union aid body ECHO.
“Funding decisions by the European Commission have integrated such needs-based
approaches, distancing its assistance from earmarking labels,” he added, noting
that there were plans for more integrated funding next year.
“Under the Humanitarian Intervention Programme for Iraq in 2015, we will
consider both Syrian refugees in Iraq as well as Iraqi IDPs and vulnerable
communities,” he explained, which is a change from the current arrangement,
which directs funding to people based on their nationality.
He added: “We consider that to be much more coherent with a needs-based
approach which at the same time might be more cost-efficient… Any push in that
direction for donors and [the] overall humanitarian community would be much
welcomed.”
Another positive example of a more coordinated approach was when, earlier this
year, the World Food Programme (WFP) sub-procured supplies which had been
warehoused in Anbar Governorate for Syrian refugees at Al Qaim camp and
distributed them to displaced Iraqis.
However, that was only possible because WFP had sufficient funds to buy the
goods from itself. If in the future there is a gap in the supply chain for IDP
distributions but stock set aside for refugees, or vice-versa, and WFP does not
have any available funds, the agency would not be able to just “borrow” the
goods, because of donor rules about who they had been supplied to.
Grisgraber acknowledges that it is not always practical - or possible - to
combine programming for IDPs and refugees due to cultural and ethnic
differences, but on the other hand, forcing separation can lead to additional
overheads and risks of duplication.
Referring to the OCHA and UNHCR policy document, she added: “Nothing in any
humanitarian response ever works exactly the way it is supposed to on paper,
but these policies are meant to function as a guideline, and you can sometimes
get the impression that no-one is truly looking at them.”
Privately many aid workers in Iraqi Kurdistan expressed deep frustrations at
the divisions between the clusters and sectors and said they felt part of the
disconnect was down to what they saw as an internal power struggle between
UNHCR, which has been operating in the country for some years supporting
refugees, and the newly-established OCHA team.
However, Jacqueline Parlevliet, a senior UNHCR protection adviser, told IRIN
that having a parallel cluster and sector response was not a problem, and said
that staff meetings were held back-to-back for refugee and IDP teams, to save
time.
“There is no risk of inefficiency because we make sure there is a lot of
co-ordination,” she insisted. “The funds are very distinctly allocated. The
biggest concern is whether we have the humanitarian capacity to respond to
everybody at once.”
Brendan McDonald, Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer with OCHA in Iraq, told
IRIN: "OCHA, in partnership with UNCHR and lead agencies and the
Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), is committed to ensuring that response
mechanisms are efficient and effective as possible and that is why we are
currently undertaking a review with all stakeholders."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________