Protection during Early Recovery

1. Session 8.2:  Durable Solutions Framework Protection during Early Recovery (Place) – (Date) Adapted from presentation developed by the Office of the Representative of the Secretary General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons

2. Why Durable Solutions? • The Framework on Durable Solutions Overview Adapted from presentation developed by the Office of the Representative of the Secretary General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons

3. Part I: Why Durable Solutions? • Because it is not sufficient for people affected by natural disasters to survive and get through the emergency phase. • Because in many cases, people affected by a disaster are not able to restart normal lives on their own when houses, infrastructure and the economy are destroyed. • Because the fact that people displaced by a disaster can return to their homes or are relocated to a safe area does not mean that such solutions are automatically durable and sustainable.

4. Because recovery is often not successful • 4 months after Cyclone : Houses are rebuilt and food distribution ends, but it will take 4 years to restore destroyed cash crops : How to feed the family? • 1 year after the big floods: Houses are ready at relocations sites but people move back to danger zones: Why? • 5 years after Hurricane Katrina: People cannot return and rebuild their houses because they do not qualify for subsidies or cannot prove ownership: What’s their future? • 10 years after Hurricane Mitch: New settlements, solid houses, a school - but no access to livelihoods: Should people migrate back to the parts of town from which they were resettled because of dangers of new floods?

5. Because recovery in cases of displacement is prescribed by Guiding Principle 28 Competent authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to establish conditions, as well as provide the means, which allow internally displaced persons to return voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle voluntarily in another part of the country. Such authorities shall endeavor to facilitate the reintegration of returned or resettled internally displaced persons. Special efforts should be made to ensure the full participation of internally displaced persons in the planning and management of their return or resettlement and reintegration.

6. Part II: IASC Framework on Durable Solutions • Developed to address the challenge of finding durable solutions for persons displaced by armed conflict and revised in 2009 based on input from field • In order to provide benchmarks for: • Planning recovery processes • Assessing progress made, and • Determining when displacement has ended • Also useful tool for identifying elements necessary for successful post-disaster recovery (whether or not affected persons are displaced)

7. Conceptual challenge Q: When do displacement and other problems caused by a natural disaster end? A: Three ways of answering the question: • When the disaster is over ? (= cause-based criteria) • When affected persons rebuild their homes and return to them? (= solutions-based criteria) • When affected persons no longer have particular needs directly linked to their having been displaced (or otherwise affected) by the disaster? (= needs-based criteria) => MOST APPROPRIATE APPROACH

8. The Framework The Framework for Durable Solutions: • Identifies elements necessary to achieve a durable solution • Combines an analysis of: • The relevant needs of IDPs (and other affected persons) • The process necessary to enable voluntary decision of IDPs (and other affected persons) • The substantive conditions necessary for making solutions (recovery) durable

9. The Framework • Understands that finding durable solutions is a gradual process • Identifies the parameters of such process based on human rights • Identifies criteria for determining the degree to which durable solutions have been achieved • Organized around 4 questions

10. Question 1: What is a durable solution? A durable solution is achieved if displaced (or otherwise affected) persons: • Have no longer any specific assistance and protection needs and vulnerabilities that are directly linked to their having been displaced (or otherwise affected) by the natural disaster; • Enjoy their human rights without being discriminated against because the were displaced (or otherwise affected) by the natural disaster.

11. Durable solutions can be achieved through: • Sustainable reintegration at the place of origin (hereinafter referred to as “return”); • Sustainable local integration in areas where internally displaced persons take refuge (local integration); • Sustainable integration in another part of the country (settlement elsewhere in the country).

12. The search for any of these durable solutions for IDPs should be understood as: • A gradual, often long-term process of reducing displacement-specific needs and ensuring the enjoyment of human rights without discrimination; • A complex process that addresses human rights, humanitarian, development, reconstruction and peace-building challenges; • A process requiring the coordinated and timely engagement of different actors.

13. Question 2: What key principles should guide the search for durable solutions? • The primary responsibility of the government; • Rapid and unimpeded access by humanitarian and development actors; • Needs, rights and legitimate interest of IDPs as primary condideration; • Respect for the right of IDPs to make an informed and voluntary choice regarding return/local integration; • Non-discrimination; and • Attention to communities (re-)integrating IDPs

14. Question 3: How should a rights based process to support a durable solution be organized? • Informed and voluntary decision; • Consultation and participation of IDPs; • Access of all actors; and • Effective monitoring.

15. Question 4: What criteria determine to what extent a durable solution has been achieved? • Safety and security; • Adequate standard of living, including access to adequate food, housing, health care, and education; • Access to employment and livelihoods; • Access to housing, land and property restitution or compensation mechanisms; • Access to documentation; • Family reunification; • Participation in public affairs; and • Access to justice.

16.  Thank you!