At the request of the UN, the Representative of the Secretary-General, in cooperation with the Brookings-Bern Project and the Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration, developed a set of benchmarks for determining when an individual should no longer be considered to be in need of protection and assistance as an IDP.

Following a broadly consultative process, the Benchmarks were adopted in March by the UN's Inter-Agency Standing Committee Working Group, which recommended their incorporation "as a pilot" into the UN's humanitarian work (to be revisited in one or two years after field testing), and encouraged UN Humanitarian Coordinators to use them "to determine when IDPs no longer have needs that differ from the population around them."