Welcome to the press briefing of the UN Information Service here in Geneva.
Today is Friday, 21st of June.
And in addition to welcoming the summer, I have very much the pleasure to welcome here Robert Piper, the Special Advisor on solution to internal displacement of the UN.
As you know, we'll start exceptionally this briefing at 10 AM to listen from Robert as we mark the two years since the launch of the Secretary General action agenda on solution to internal displacement.
Then you will have a chance to ask questions and then we will go into the regular press briefing you, I think you have received the attendance list.
So without further ado, I'll give the floor to Robert for his introductory remarks and then we will take questions.
Thank you very much, Robert.
Thank you Alessandra and, and good morning to everyone online.
Thank you for making time for this.
So June 24th, Monday marks, as Lisandra said, the 2nd anniversary of the Secretary General's Action Agenda on Internal Displacement.
In the fog of acronyms at the United Nations, internally displaced persons or Idps easily lost.
There are 76,000,000 ID PS Today, 76 million people who've lost their homes, lost their livelihoods, lost their communities, in some cases even lost their identities, their legal identities because of wars, because of disasters like earthquakes and floods, more and more weather related disasters.
They are internal because they have not crossed a border, unlike a refugee of course, who who has crossed an international border.
Some internally displaced people get home relatively quickly.
Generally after a disaster, people do get home relatively fast.
But 10s of millions of displaced people do not get home fast at all.
Rather, they get stuck in protracted displacement for 5-10 years, even longer.
The people that are caught in long term displacement are typically displaced by conflicts and by wars.
Syria, Somalia, Colombia, Sudan.
It can take these people years to resettle, to return home, to maybe resettle somewhere else in their country, or to integrate locally more and more.
But the numbers are growing exponentially.
There are twice as many internally displaced people today as there were ten years ago.
The largest numbers today on the planet, sadly are from Sudan, which added 6,000,000 new ID PS to the existing 3,000,000 ID PS over the last 12 months, setting a terrible record unfortunately for more ID PS in anyone country than we've ever seen before.
The UN humanitarian teams provided life saving assistance to 50 million internally displaced persons last year.
But it's clear we need to do better.
The Secretary General's Action Agenda on Internal Displacement, launched 2 years ago, represents his commitment to ensure that the UN responds more effectively to this challenge.
That we find ways of reducing these escalating numbers of new displacements.
That we improve the way in which we respond when our prevention efforts fail.
And we learnt to break this pattern, this increasing pattern of protracted displacement, by moving displaced people to a solution much, much more quickly.
The Action Agenda sets out 31 commitments across 3 axes and 22 different UN agencies signed up to make it a reality.
I was given the task of coordinating this work and in particular of trying to figure out how to move this solutions task forward, how to retrain the way we understand this problem, how to build a coalition around this task of solutions of breaking this pattern of protracted displacement.
We're at the two year mark and we can point to some really important progress.
Most importantly, most significantly, governments in affected countries have really stepped forward to take the lead.
We see incredible political leadership from many countries around the globe, and it's coming from different places.
Governors in North East Nigeria, mayors in Colombia, ministers in Iraq.
It's a mixture, but this political leadership is really very significant.
These governments have introduced a new generation of of displacement strategies and national strategies that are anchored in their development plans that really have as their goal how to move people out of displacement.
We've seen these governments put their money behind their political commitments.
The government of Iraq will fund all of this displacement solutions work.
The government of Libya also will fund but in Nigeria for example, the governor of Borno State has committed 15% of his revenue for the next 4 years towards this solutions work.
In Somalia, Federal, state, state governments have donated land which should be sufficient to look after at least 400,000 IDP.
So political commitment, financial commitment.
Behind that political commitment.
We've been working especially closely with 15 pilot countries to work out how do you do this?
How do you make this switch to solutions?
What is the role of government?
How do you build the financing?
And with our 15 pilot government so far, we've got commitments to move 8.5 million ID PS onto solutions pathways, already a major, major breakthrough.
And these solutions pathways are really established based on international standards.
These governments have absolutely embraced the principle that moving people home or integrating them locally has to be safe, has to be absolutely voluntary, has to be done in a dignified way and they're all options are on the table.
Local integration, a return home, whatever the displaced person themselves wants.
Huge breakthrough at the government, the country level with the leadership of these governments, at a more global level, the UN and our partners who had to get our act together to improve our support to these governments as they step forward to lead.
And we've made some big progress there.
We've established a new financing facility for the UN to accompany governments in this difficult task.
We've placed advisors in the leadership offices of the UN family, the UN resident coordinators around the world.
In a number of these countries, we've put sort of very strategic advisors, 11 UN agencies formally signed up to reform the way in which their own internal systems respond to this internal displacement crisis.
They've established new staff surge mechanisms.
They've put new money behind this issue.
They've changed accountability so that displacement, internal displacement shows up in the job descriptions and in the monitoring systems of these agencies, agencies like UNICEF, FAO, the UN Development Programme, UN Habitat, a real Galaxy of newcomers as it were, that are coming to this task.
And we've had a big investment in data last year.
Some of you may have heard of IO, Ms Flagship, first the State of solutions report.
But across the the board, huge investments in in data systems that are so important.
We've also, I think lifted the visibility of this issue globally.
It's now discussed not only in humanitarian circles, but next week at the Peace Building Commission.
A couple of months ago at the World Bank's Global Fragility Forum, where there was dedicated discussions.
We've built a partnership with the African Development Bank, with the Asian Development Bank, the Ifis in particular, really coming forward also to play their part in in providing support to these governments.
And finally, as I mentioned at the beginning, the humanitarian community has also committed itself to really upgrade its ability to respond to this growing phenomenon 50 million people reached last year.
But the humanitarian system has also just completed a one year review of how it handles internal displacement situations, which is laying out a real a road map of how to make some fundamental changes to the way in which we respond from day one of a displacement crisis, not just 2-3 years down the track.
I'm not here to declare victory.
We still have a long way to go.
And I'm going to flag 3 and then I'll, I'll finish.
Where are our deficits today #1?
Very clearly on prevention, the numbers unfortunately speak for themselves.
Today, 76,000,012 months ago, 71,000,000, the numbers keep going up.
They are driven by conflicts, they're driven by natural disasters, natural disasters, especially weather related disasters.
We have to figure out how to reverse those trends.
Otherwise, there's just trying to fix solutions at the other end of the process.
Obviously is not going to reverse the overall trend #2 we're working very closely with donors, with the banks to figure out how do we find the right level of financing to really embark on large scale solutions.
This is expensive when people lose their homes and are displaced somewhere else and they need to go back and we're offering them a a solution that is a lasting one.
We're not talking about shelters anymore, We're talking about homes.
And in our solutions plans, we're seeing country by country.
Typically the housing piece is the most expensive, but it's only not only housing, it's livelihoods, it's infrastructure.
So the second big challenge is to find a breakthrough on the financing that can really allow us to lift our ambition.
And the third and final one is about the governance of this issue.
We can all agree now there's this growing consensus that this issue is not just a short term emergency issue, but it needs all of government and it needs all of the UN to kind of climb in and play its part.
Whether it's the climate, people working on loss and damages, whether it's the development, people working on livelihoods, whether it's the bank, people looking at investing in in remote regions.
But the UN today does not have a forum that brings this cross section of players together.
Internal displacement is a forgotten issue that falls between the cracks.
It's everyone's problem and it's no one's problem at the end of the day.
So the third piece of this puzzle, which we've been pushing very hard, is for member States to step forward.
Sorry for sorry for that colleagues.
I see that in the chat that there was a problem with sound but it came back.
Maybe you want to just repeat the last point?
Yes, the Member States, but OK.
So as I said, sorry for that.
As I said, I think 3 outstanding challenges.
The 1st is on prevention.
How do we reverse this trend?
The second is on financing.
How are we going to really escalate the level of financing required to meet the ambition of 76 million people in displacement?
And the third is a governance challenge, a challenge to our member states.
We're doing a lot of work inside the UN.
Governments that are affected by displacement are doing tremendous work, but there's still this gap in our international architecture on this issue.
ID PS keep falling between the cracks.
It's no one's responsibility and it's everyone's responsibility at the same time, which obviously doesn't lend to good accountability.
So our big appeal and the Secretary General's proposal in the action agenda from day one was it member states create some kind of forum which governs this issue in a much more integrated, much more kind of cross sectoral way.
We don't need a new agency, we don't need a big treaty, we don't even need a big new office.
But we need some coherence amongst our Member States that connects the development work around livelihoods with the discussions with the banks, around infrastructure, with the teams that are working on loss and damages and the whole climate piece.
All of these parts of the system need to come together.
And the challenge, the last challenge as it were on my list is to Member states to try and fill this gap in our governance structures.
So let me stop there, Alessandra.
Thank you very much, Robert, for this update.
It's incredibly important than when we look at the numbers.
So we have about 32 people on the line.
I'll give the floor to whoever wants to.
Maya plans to you in brief, Yes, good morning.
Thank you, Alessandra, for taking my question.
Mr Piper, could you please?
The UNHCR and IOM work with internally displaced populations.
What do you see is the challenge there for two agencies that work on the issue?
And what are you suggesting?
As you mentioned this new perhaps sort of conference that would address specific specifics of this internally displaced populations flight.
UNH CHAR and IOM are by far the see the two most active agencies on on internal displacement and I work very, very closely with them and with a number of other agencies as well.
But they are the first to recognise that this requires a much larger coalition of actors.
And so the UN Development Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, really there's a list of key UN players that also need to come to the come to the task.
So IOMUNHER are very much at the centre of this.
A lot of their work, particularly UNHCR, is about that first response with the World Food Programme and other emergency actors to save lives and stabilise situations.
But they are also the first to recognise UNHCR that they can't offer a long term solution to an internally displaced person.
That's about a home, not a shelter.
That's about addressing long term livelihoods, re establishing schools and and health facilities.
It's about compensation and transitional justice.
And so whether it's UNHCR or other parts of the UN system as well, everyone is on the same page that this requires a much larger coalition of players.
So building on the very important work that humanitarian actors do, but they can't do it alone.
Indeed, thank you very much.
Looking at the platform, other questions for Robert, I don't see hands up from other journalists.
Amaya, you have a follow up.
What do you see would be this conference of sorts or some sort of global summit?
Do you have something already?
On the agenda or something you are still.
Negotiating with country?
Members, we don't have a specific prescription.
We know there is right now very fragmented governance of this issue.
So it's discussed in IOM at UNHERS Board, it's discussed in the humanitarian segment of the General Assembly in the Human Rights Council.
But there is no place that brings all of these pieces together and in particular brings in the development part of the system and the peace building part of the system.
We need to join it up if we're going to deliver a more joined up, a kind of response.
Our idea is some kind of forum that is an intergovernmental forum that meets periodically, not even every year necessarily, but meets periodically to allow first and foremost governments that are affected by internal displacement to lay out what lessons they've learnt, what needs they have, what expectations they have of of the international system to support them.
But also a place that keeps pressure on the UN family to come together, that celebrates the the work of the of the international financial institutions as they increasingly get involved.
And they really bring an international kind of system together in a much, much more coherent way.
So we see thousands of people convening on migration and development forum or refugee global refugee forums.
We need nothing even on that scale, despite the fact that we're speaking here about 76 million people.
So our ambition is is much smaller, even despite the numbers being much larger.
It's not a part of the global compacts of either migrant migrants or migration or or refugees.
So we need something, not necessarily a compact either, but we need a forum that brings it together.
But I think the secretary general is very clear this needs to be led by member States and so we're waiting for for that member state leadership to to, to make it happen.
So far no real concrete progress.
If there are no other questions from our journalist online, I think we can really thank Robert for updating us on this very important issue and we should.
Sorry there is hand up, but it's from an is Miladin on the line?
I am not sure this is a real hand, but no, I think that's nothing.
And it's a colleague that is trying to say something on the technical team.
So thank you very much, Robert.
And we look forward to hear how it will go, how it will develop.
So as I said, we, we just interrupt the briefing for a little moment that will allow us to do some technicalities and then we will start again with the programme that we've already sent you.
