Global Report on Internal Displacement 2023

• 18 May 2023

For Prelims: Global Report on Internal Displacement 2023, Internal Displacement, Conflict and Violence, Russia-Ukraine, Disaster, Flood, Monsoon.

For Mains: Internal Displacement and Issues, Global Report on Internal Displacement 2023.

Why in News?

Recently, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre has released a report titled- The Global Report on Internal Displacement 2023 (GRID-2023), which cites that the number of people displaced by disasters rose by 40% in 2022 rather than 2021.

• The IDMC is the world's leading source of data and analysis on internal displacement. It provides high-quality data, analysis and expertise on Internal Displacement with the aim of informing policy and operational decisions that can reduce the risk of future displacement.

What are the Key Findings of the GRID-2023?

• Total Number Of Displacements:
  • The number of people living in internal displacement reached a record high of 71.1 million people across 110 countries and territories.
  • 62.5 million as a result of conflict and violence, and 8.7 million as a result of disasters.
    • Disasters displaced 8.7 million people internally in 88 countries and territories as of December 2022.
    • This led to record levels of flood displacement in countries including Pakistan, Nigeria and Brazil.
  • By 2021, 30.7 million new displacements were due to disasters. In 2022 some 150 countries/territories reported such displacement.
• Country wise Picture:
  • Pakistan had the highest number of disaster displacements in the world in 2022, at 8.16 million.
    • In Pakistan, floods displaced millions, accounting for a quarter of the global disaster displacements.
  • The Philippines was at second rank and reported 5.44 million displacements and China at third rank with 3.63 million.
  • India recorded the fourth largest disaster displacement, with 2.5 million displacements and Nigeria at fifth rank with 2.4 million.
• Factors for Displacement:
  • Disaster: The increase in disasters, particularly weather-related, is largely the result of the effects of La Niña which continued for a third consecutive year.
    • The “triple-dip” La Niña caused widespread disasters across the world.
  • Russia-Ukraine Induced Displacement: In 2022, the number of people displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war increased.
    • The conflict caused a displacement of 16.9 million — “the highest figure ever recorded for any country.”
    • The number of displacements associated with conflict and violence nearly doubled to 28.3 million.
• Implications:
  • Entrenched conflict, disasters and displacement aggravated Global Food Security in 2022, which was already a concern as a result of the slow and uneven recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • Low-income countries, many of which are dealing with internal displacement, were most affected, in part given their reliance on food and fertilizer imports and international humanitarian aid.
    • 75% of the countries assessed as facing crisis levels of food security have IDPs.

What is the Scenario of India?

• India recorded thousand numbers of internal displacement and 631,000 internally displaced people due to conflict and violence and 2.5 million due to disaster in 2022.
• India and Bangladesh started to experience flooding even before the official start of the monsoon season, which normally runs between mid-July and September.
  • India’s north-eastern state of Assam was affected by early floods in May 2022 and the same areas were once again flooded in June. Nearly five million people were affected across the state.
• Some parts of India reported their lowest July 2022 rainfall in 122 years.
• By the end of the monsoon, 2.1 million displacements had been recorded across India, a significant decrease from the five million that occurred during the 2021 season.

What is Internal Displacement?

• About: Internal displacement describes the situation of people who have been forced to leave their homes but have not left their country.
• Factors of Displacement: Millions of people are uprooted from their homes or places of habitual residence each year in the context of conflict, violence, development projects, disasters and climate change and remain displaced within their countries’ borders.
• Components: Internal displacement is based on two components:
  • The person’s movement is coerced or involuntary (to distinguish them from economic and other voluntary migrants);
  • The person stays within internationally recognised state borders (to distinguish them from refugees).
• Difference from Refugee: According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, a “refugee” is a person who has been persecuted and forced to leave his native country.
  • A precondition of being considered a refugee is that a person crosses an international border.
  • Unlike refugees, internally displaced people are not the subject of any international convention.
  • At the international level, no single agency or organisation has been designated as the global lead on protection and assistance of internally displaced persons.
  • However, there are United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

What are the Recommendations?

• Conflict resolution, peacebuilding, disaster risk reduction, climate resilience, food security and poverty reduction must all be strengthened.
• There is an increasing need for durable solutions to meet the scale of the challenges facing displaced people. This spans the expansion of cash assistance and livelihood programmes that improve IDPs’ (Internally Displaced People) economic security, through investments in risk reduction measures that strengthen their communities’ resilience.
• Beyond immediate humanitarian assistance, investments are needed in anticipatory action and risk reduction measures that strengthen displaced communites' resilience.
• Developing IDP's livelihoods and skills would help to facilitate durable solutions by increasing their food security and their communities’ and countries’ self-reliance at the same time.

Source: DTE