People internally displaced by conflict and violence

For the last 14 years, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre has monitored intern- al displacement resulting from conflict and violence across the world. In 2011, the number of people internally displaced by these causes stood at 26.4 million.

GENEVA, 20 January 2012 (IRIN) - The governments of 15 countries most affected by internal displacement have failed to adequately protect internally displaced persons (IDPs), and in many cases have themselves been perpetrators of violence or abuses that led to the displacements, according to a Brookings-London School of Economics study.

“The key finding in this study is that the governments do not quite meet the benchmarks,” for adequate protection of IDPs, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of IDPs Chaloka Beyani told IRIN.

1. A significant increase in the numbers of persons of concern to UNHCR brought new challenges in 2006. While there was a 14 per cent increase in refugee numbers from the previous year, the Office's involvement, together with other humanitarian partners, in protecting and assisting internally displaced persons (IDPs) under the inter-agency cluster approach, resulted in a doubling of IDP figures. Thanks to better data capturing, many more stateless people have been identified, also swelling numbers.

2. Despite a plethora of complex challenges,