Four Essential Steps Toward Durable Solutions for IDPs

Three-quarters of the world’s estimated 41.3 million internally displaced people (IDPs) reside in only ten countries, so making progress in only a few of them could result in transformative impact on the overall global IDP crisis.

While local integration and return are not mutually exclusive, local integration is often the most viable of the durable solutions. Given this reality, the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement should focus on countries whose governments support IDPs’ desire to integrate locally.

In this paper, InterAction’s Forced Displacement Working Group has outlined the four essential steps for a roadmap toward IDP Durable Solutions, with a focus on local integration:

Step 1: Initiate an official country selection process; invite Member States to signal their interest in jointly developing a roadmap to address internal displacement in their country

Step 2: Identify the major barriers to durable solutions for internally displaced people in the selected country contexts

Step 3: Determine top priorities and propose creative solutions to overcome identified barriers

Step 4: Drive political will and investments to implement a working agenda that can be taken forward after the Panel completes its mandate