Amid drastic surge in internal displacement, UN urges governments to find long-term solutions

Special Amid drastic surge in internal displacement, UN urges governments to find long-term solutions
Displaced Palestinians flee northern Gaza, Dec. 4, 2024. (Reuters)
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Amid drastic surge in internal displacement, UN urges governments to find long-term solutions

Amid drastic surge in internal displacement, UN urges governments to find long-term solutions
  • Much of increase driven by conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, DRC and Sudan, UN special adviser tells Arab News
  • At nearly 76m, the number of internally displaced persons worldwide has ‘doubled in just the last 10 years’

NEW YORK: Nearly 76 million people around the world are currently displaced within their own countries, according to the UN’s special advisor on internal displacement, Robert Piper.

This staggering number highlights the growing crisis of internally displaced persons who, unlike refugees, have not crossed international borders and often remain hidden from global attention.

Speaking in New York at a conference marking the end of his mandate, Piper highlighted the severe challenges in addressing the plight of IDPs, particularly those displaced by conflict, disasters and criminal violence.

“Seventy-six million people have lost their homes, livelihoods and communities. They make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s 120 million displaced persons,” he said.

“Yet they remain largely invisible, with no dedicated global agency or global treaty or compact for IDPs, no international day that singles them out, and their numbers have doubled in just the last 10 years.”

Piper told Arab News that in the past five years alone, 20 million IDPs were added to the global total, with much of the increase coming from conflict zones such as Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, “which has unfortunately broken all the records.”

Climate change is exacerbating the problem as extreme weather events displace millions each year.

“There has been a tremendous amount of disaster-induced displacement during the past five years as well. Pakistan’s floods displaced 8 million people. The Turkish earthquake displaced millions,” Piper said.

“But the difference is that generally speaking, people are getting home much more quickly after disasters,” whereas tens of millions of people displaced because of conflicts remain so for many years, he added.

So the UN’s approach has shifted in recent years, with a growing recognition that long-term solutions, not just humanitarian aid, are required.

Piper emphasized that while governments in countries such as Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria have taken significant steps toward resolving displacement issues, more needs to be done.

These countries have developed national strategies to assist displaced populations, with Iraq and Libya, for example, committing to fully fund their own solutions processes.

Somalia’s recent commitment of $140 million for land purchases to integrate displaced people marks another important milestone.

Piper told Arab News that “pathways to solutions” involve ensuring displaced people have access to housing, services and livelihoods.

They also focus on compensation and justice, helping IDPs restore their legal rights and integrate into local communities.

“It’s access to services, restoring those services if they’ve gone home, or giving them access to services in their place of displacement, if that’s where they choose to settle,” Piper said.

“It’s about access to a livelihood of some kind, whether it’s agricultural or urban. These are the fairly obvious kinds of conditions that everyone needs to rebuild a life.

“Perhaps less obvious are other elements of this work, compensation and justice, a recognition of what has happened to them, what they’ve lost, their inclusion in civic life.

“Often this involves allowing them to be elected, to vote in their local constituency. And in some cases it’s restoring their documentation, their identity because, indeed, many IDPs are displaced so rapidly that they lose their legal documentation.”

Piper stressed that the core of these efforts is government leadership. “Governments must take responsibility, but they also need the right kind of support from the international system, more investment in development, better capacity building, and less focus on short-term fixes,” he said.

The UN has also reorganized its structures to better support governments in resolving displacement issues.

New funding mechanisms, such as the Solutions Fund, have been created to accelerate progress, while financial institutions such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank have begun incorporating IDP solutions into their assessments and scorecards.

Piper also highlighted the challenges of working in conflict zones where governments may be part of the problem rather than the solution.

He pointed to Gaza, Myanmar and Sudan, where ongoing violence and political instability make it impossible to implement the UN’s model for long-term displacement solutions.

“In places like Gaza, the conditions aren’t conducive to solutions at this moment,” he said. “The UN’s role is primarily focused on humanitarian aid and protection, not on the long-term solutions we’re advocating in other countries.”

Piper highlighted the importance of moving beyond humanitarian assistance to address the root causes of displacement and ensure long-term stability for displaced populations.

He pointed to the UN’s efforts to make IDP solutions a priority at the international level, including discussions at climate change conferences and other forums.

Piper expressed confidence that the groundwork has been laid for more effective solutions, but stressed that continued global attention and investment are critical. “The numbers are rising, and without continued progress, this crisis will only deepen,” he warned.

The focus on long-term solutions, he said, is not only about addressing the immediate needs of IDPs, but also about creating the conditions for them to rebuild their lives and communities sustainably.


French government felled in no-confidence vote, deepening political crisis

French government felled in no-confidence vote, deepening political crisis
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French government felled in no-confidence vote, deepening political crisis

French government felled in no-confidence vote, deepening political crisis
  • Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his government
  • Barnier was expected to tender his resignation and that of his government to President Emmanuel Macron shortly

PARIS: French opposition lawmakers brought the government down on Wednesday, throwing the European Union’s second-biggest economic power deeper into a political crisis that threatens its capacity to legislate and rein in a massive budget deficit.
Far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his government, with a majority 331 votes in support of the motion.
Barnier was expected to tender his resignation and that of his government to President Emmanuel Macron shortly.
The hard left and far right punished Barnier for opting to use special constitutional powers to adopt part of an unpopular budget without a final vote in parliament, where it lacked majority support. The draft budget had sought 60 billion euros ($63.07 billion) in savings in a drive to shrink a gaping deficit.
“This (deficit) reality will not disappear by the magic of a motion of censure,” Barnier told lawmakers ahead of the vote, adding the budget deficit would come back to haunt whichever government comes next.
No French government had lost a confidence vote since Georges Pompidou’s in 1962. Macron ushered in the crisis by calling a snap election in June that delivered a polarized parliament.
With its president diminished, France now risks ending the year without a stable government or a 2025 budget, although the constitution allows special measures that would avert a US-style government shutdown.
France’s political turmoil will further weaken a European Union already reeling from the implosion of Germany’s coalition government, and weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
“We have arrived at the moment of truth,” far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen said, adding that Barnier’s austerity budget plans had been dangerous and unfair and would have meant chaos for France.
The hard left France Unbowed (LFI) party demanded Macron’s resignation.
“With the no-confidence motion, all of the politics of Emmanuel Macron have been defeated and we demand that he goes,” said LFI member Mathilde Panot.
No easy exit from French political crisis
France now faces a period of deep political uncertainty that is already unnerving investors in French sovereign bonds and stocks. Earlier this week, France’s borrowing costs briefly exceeded those of Greece, generally considered far more risky.
Macron must now make a choice.
Three sources told Reuters that Macron aimed to install a new prime minister swiftly, with one saying he wanted to name a premier before a ceremony to reopen the Notre-Dame Cathedral on Saturday, which Trump is due to attend.
Any new prime minister would face the same challenges as Barnier in getting bills, including the 2025 budget, adopted by a divided parliament. There can be no new parliamentary election before July.
Macron could alternatively ask Barnier and his ministers to stay on in a caretaker capacity while he takes time to identify a prime minister able to attract sufficient cross-party support to pass legislation.
A caretaker government could either propose emergency legislation to roll the tax-and-spend provisions in the 2024 budget into next year, or invoke special powers to pass the draft 2025 budget by decree — though jurists say this is a legal grey area and the political cost would be huge.
Macron’s opponents also could vote down one prime minister after the next.
His rivals say the only meaningful way to end the protracted political crisis is for him to resign, something he has hitherto shown little inclination to do.
Economic pain
The upheaval is not without risk for Le Pen, who has for years sought to convince voters that her party offers a stable government in waiting.
“The French will harshly judge the choice you are going to make,” Laurent Wauquiez, a lawmaker from the conservative Les Republicains party who backs Macron, told Le Pen in parliament.
Since Macron called the summer snap election, France’s CAC 40 benchmark stock market index has dropped nearly 10 percent and is the heaviest loser among top EU economies. The euro single currency is down nearly 4 percent.
“The positive signals ... that were seen over the summer, partly due to the Olympics, are now a thing of the past,” Hamburg Commercial Bank economist Tariq Kamal Chaudhry said.
Barnier’s draft budget had sought to cut the fiscal deficit from a projected 6 percent of national output this year to 5 percent in 2025. Voting down his government would be catastrophic for state finances, he said. Le Pen shrugged off the warning. She said her party would support any eventual emergency law that rolls over the 2024 budget’s tax-and-spend provisions into next year to ensure there is stopgap financing.


Drought hits food access for 26 million in southern Africa: UN

Drought hits food access for 26 million in southern Africa: UN
Updated 54 min 53 sec ago
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Drought hits food access for 26 million in southern Africa: UN

Drought hits food access for 26 million in southern Africa: UN
  • Those need an additional $300 million to prevent access to sufficient, nutritious and affordable food worsening further, risking widespread hunger, according to the WFP

JOHANNESBURG: A historic drought across southern Africa has jeopardized access to food for 26 million people, the United Nations World Food Programme warned Wednesday, calling for urgent funding.

The crisis, worsened by the 2023-2024 El Nino climate phenomenon, is expected to deepen until at least the next harvests due in March or April next year.

“Today we have up to 26 million people facing acute food insecurity in the region and this is because of El Nino induced drought,” said Eric Perdison, regional director for southern Africa at the WFP.

The seven worst affected nations were Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Perdison added.

Those need an additional $300 million to prevent access to sufficient, nutritious and affordable food worsening further, risking widespread hunger, according to the WFP.

Five countries — Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — have declared a state of national emergency in the past months as the drought has destroyed scores of crops and livestock.

In many places, farmers who would normally be planting seeds at this time of the year, were not able to do so.

“If you travel across the country, you will see almost all empty fields ... The situation is really really dire,” said the WFP’s country director in Mozambique, Antonella D’Aprile.

“Communities have very little or almost nothing to eat,” she said, adding that “thousands of families are literally surviving on just one meal” a day.

Assistance “cannot wait,” warned D’Aprile. “The time to support is really now.”

In neighboring Malawi, the WFP said it has had to import food to provide assistance due to the shortages.

“Nearly half the maize crops were damaged by El Nino drought earlier this year,” said the group’s representative in the country, Paul Turnbull.

Families were facing grim choices, he said: “Skipping meals; adults not eating so their children can eat; withdrawing children from school; and selling anything they have of value.”

Despite Zambia being “known as the food basket of southern Africa,” the country “stands at the brink of a hunger crisis,” said the WFP’s director for the country Cissy Kabasuuga.

In Namibia, an upper middle-income country, the situation was also dire.

“All 14 regions were impacted by the drought, of which there are some that have very worrying levels (of food insecurity) and that’s a very worrying situation for Namibia,” said WFP’s Tiwonge Machiwenyika.

The aid group’s representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) also joined the appeal for assistance.

The country has more than 25 million people facing emergency levels of food insecurity, said Peter Musoko, WFP’s representative in the DRC, with “no relief in sight.”

That was all “due to a cocktail” of conflict, climate extremes and health crises including outbreaks of mpox, cholera and measles, Musoko added.

As a result of those multiple issues, the WFP said it had also noted an increase in sexual and gender-based violence in the country and the opening of brothels around camps hosting displaced people.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday during a trip to the region announced a $1 billion humanitarian aid package to 31 African countries, including for people affected by the drought.


Bangladesh’s Yunus urges unity to counter ‘Indian aggression’

Bangladesh’s Yunus urges unity to counter ‘Indian aggression’
Updated 04 December 2024
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Bangladesh’s Yunus urges unity to counter ‘Indian aggression’

Bangladesh’s Yunus urges unity to counter ‘Indian aggression’
  • India, where ex-PM Hasina has sought refuge, accuses Bangladesh of failing to protect Hindus
  • After Hasina’s ouster, Hindus and other minorities suffered attacks for allegedly supporting her

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus on Wednesday urged the country’s politicians to keep differences at bay and put up a united front to counter “Indian aggression.”

The Muslim-majority nation saw a student-led uprising in August, toppling autocratic premier Sheikh Hasina and ending her 15-year rule.

India — Hasina’s biggest international patron and the destination of her exile — has accused Yunus’ administration of failing to protect minority Hindus, straining ties between the neighbors.

“They are undermining our efforts to build a new Bangladesh and are spreading fictitious stories,” Yunus told a gathering of Bangladeshi political parties.

“They have spread these rumors in particular countries and among influential players.”

Yunus urged politicians at the meeting to unite against what he characterised as a disinformation campaign, describing the matter as “a question of our existence.”

A caretaker administration headed by Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been tasked with enacting democratic reforms ahead of fresh elections.

The chaotic aftermath of Hasina’s ouster saw a smattering of reprisal attacks against Hindus and other minorities, based in part on their perceived support for her government.

Yunus’s administration has acknowledged and condemned attacks on Hindus but said in many cases they were motivated by politics rather than religion.

It has accused India of exaggerating the scale of the violence and running a “propaganda campaign.”

Wednesday’s meeting, Yunus’s media team said, was part of an initiative to promote national unity in the face of “Indian aggression.”

Yunus also met with student leaders on Tuesday evening.

Numerous street demonstrations have been staged against India in Bangladesh since Hasina’s ouster as diplomatic relations have cratered.

Several rallies were held on Wednesday to protest against an attempt by Hindu activists this week to storm a Bangladeshi consulate in an Indian city not far from the neighbors’ shared border.

India has condemned the breach and arrested seven people over the incident.


Ex-Afghan soldiers issue plea to UK PM for relocation

Ex-Afghan soldiers issue plea to UK PM for relocation
Updated 04 December 2024
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Ex-Afghan soldiers issue plea to UK PM for relocation

Ex-Afghan soldiers issue plea to UK PM for relocation
  • Members of elite units ‘living in desperation’ as British scheme beset by delays
  • After serving alongside British forces against Taliban, many fled to neighboring Iran

LONDON: Former Afghan soldiers who fought alongside British forces against the Taliban have urged UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to bring them to safety, The Independent reported on Wednesday.

Thousands of soldiers from two Afghan special forces units — CF333 and ATF444, known as the Triples — fled to neighboring Iran from Afghanistan as the Taliban seized control of the country in 2021.

Years later they are “living in desperation,” awaiting delayed responses to relocation applications in the UK, The Independent reported.

In February, the UK government said it would review about 2,000 application from Afghans with ties to the units.

Some of the former soldiers have remained in Afghanistan and are forced to hide their identities from the country’s Taliban rulers.

Many of the former Triples are awaiting an email from the UK Ministry of Defence permitting their relocation to Britain.

The UK pledged to review the 2,000 applications within 12 weeks from February, but the process has been struck by delays.

Sarah Fenby-Dixon, a campaigner at Refugee Aid Network said: “The desperation is palpable. With winter approaching they cannot feed their children or buy fuel to keep them warm.

“It is now imperative that the Ministry of Defence teams are adequately staffed to ensure that these people are brought to safety as quickly as possible.”

The ministry said in a statement: “As the minister for the armed forces made clear recently to parliament, we understand the frustration that the review is taking so long.

“Key issues within the review have been resolved and we are working hard to ensure that eligible former Triples and their families can move to start a new life in the UK.”


Norway wealth fund divests from Israel’s Bezeq over services to West Bank settlements

New housing being built in the Israeli settlement of Givat Ze'ev in the occupied West Bank. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has s
New housing being built in the Israeli settlement of Givat Ze'ev in the occupied West Bank. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has s
Updated 04 December 2024
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Norway wealth fund divests from Israel’s Bezeq over services to West Bank settlements

New housing being built in the Israeli settlement of Givat Ze'ev in the occupied West Bank. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has s
  • Fund’s ethics watchdog adopts tougher interpretation of standards for businesses that aid Israel’s operations in the occupied Palestinian territories

OSLO/JERUSALEM: Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, has sold all its shares in Israel’s Bezeq as it provides telecoms services to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The decision, announced late on Tuesday, comes after the fund’s ethics watchdog, the Council on Ethics, adopted a new, tougher interpretation of ethics standards for businesses that aid Israel’s operations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The $1.8-trillion fund has been an international leader in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment field. It owns 1.5 percent of the world’s listed shares across 8,700 companies, and its size gives it influence.
It is the latest decision by a European financial entity to cut back links to Israeli companies or those with ties to the country, as pressure mounts from foreign governments to end the war in Gaza.
Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecoms group, declined to comment.
“The company, through its physical presence and provision of telecom services to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, is helping to facilitate the maintenance and expansion of these settlements, which are illegal under international law,” the sovereign wealth fund’s watchdog said in its recommendation to divest.
“By doing so the company is itself contributing to the violation of international law.”
The watchdog said it noted that the company had said it was providing telecoms services to Palestinian areas in the West Bank, but that did not outweigh the fact that it was also providing services to Israeli settlements.
The watchdog makes recommendations to the board of the Norwegian central bank, which has the final say on divestments.
The advice on Bezeq was the first recommendation to divest since the watchdog toughened its policy in August. More decisions are expected.
The fund has now sold all its stock in the company.
Before that, it had cut its stake during the first half of 2024, owning 0.76 percent of the company’s shares valued at $23.7 million at the end of June, down from a holding of 2.2 percent at the start of the year, fund data showed.
Sources close to the company said the divestment’s impact was “negligible” as it amounted to 0.7 percent of the shares and that the decision was clearly a “political decision.”
They said Bezeq was allowed to provide telecoms services to Jewish settlements in Area C under the 1994 Oslo Accords — which also called for the Palestinian Authority to set up their own telecoms network to Palestinian areas.
“Bezeq is operating according to the Oslo agreements so it’s a political decision,” said one source. “Of all the companies to choose from (to divest), Bezeq should have been the last.”
Norway in May recognized Palestine as a state, alongside Spain and Ireland.
Norway served as a facilitator in the 1992-1993 talks between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization that led to the Oslo Accords in 1993. Area C, which comprises about 60 percent of the West Bank, is under full Israeli control and contains most Israeli settlements.
The Council on Ethics said it was aware of this but that “the situation in the area has developed in the opposite direction to that presumed by the Oslo Accords.”
“The settlements are constantly being expanded, Palestinians are constantly being driven from their homes and land areas are de facto being annexed,” it told Reuters, citing its recommendation. “Qualified discrimination and violent abuse of the Palestinian population in Area C is also taking place.”
The fund watchdog’s new definition of ethical breaches is partly based on an International Court of Justice finding in July that “the occupation itself, Israel’s settlement policy and the way Israel uses the natural resources in the areas are in conflict with international law,” according to a Aug. 30 letter it addressed to the finance ministry.
Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, the council had been investigating whether more companies fall outside its permitted investment guidelines.
Before the announcement to divest, the fund had divested from nine companies operating in the West Bank.
Their operations include building roads and homes in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and providing surveillance systems for an Israeli wall around the West Bank.