Corina Demottaz
Moderator
As internal displacement continues to grow, and more internally displaced people (IDPs) find themselves displaced to urban settings, municipal governments are increasingly facing challenges when it comes to understanding and responding to the needs of displaced populations and integrating this into their urban planning. As the Office of the Special Advisor on Solutions to Internal Displacement (OSA) seeks to encourage longer-term, development-oriented responses, ownership and engagement from municipal governments will be critical to ensuring success. To accompany the implementations of these international standards at city level, access to reliable information and displacement profiling is key. The international community has developed a wealth of tools to generate quality, timely and accurate data and analysis, along with tools to support city-level decision-making on displacement responses and solutions. These tools are meant to better inform policy and programmatic decision making and by aiding local authorities to take the lead in these processes. Yet, many of these tools are yet to be deployed to their full potential, as many local government authorities faced with protracted urban displacement may not be aware of their existence. This event brings together experts from international humanitarian and development organisations and municipal authorities to discuss data and context analysis applications to support solutions in local, urban contexts, drawing on examples of good practices and lessons learned from around the world.
The session will begin by setting the scene at the global level, with IIED providing an overview of findings and key policy recommendations included in the new “Global Framework on Solutions to Urban Internal Displacement,” the rationale and need for such a framework, and how its recommendations can better support “solutions from the start.”
The session will then seek to translate these conceptual elements of global frameworks into concrete realities, drawing on specific examples from Colombia, Niger, Mozambique and Cameroon. Representatives from JIPS, IMPACT Initiatives and IDMC, as well as municipal authorities themselves, will respond to the following questions in a discussion format, to explore and share insights:
- How can global frameworks and national strategies be translated and operationalised at the municipality level? How can local learning feed into global processes? What tools and data are available to support this?
- How have municipalities responded to urban displacement? What are the best practices, key challenges and lessons learned that can inform future response?
- How can we strengthen the response to displacement to urban areas, drawing on recommendations from the OSA and Independent review of the humanitarian response to internal displacement?
Harnessing the momentum of the Action Agenda on Internal Displacement and the OSA, and the growing attention from government and development stakeholders to the topic of internal displacement, the key objective of this session is to guide participants through the data and analysis tools available to inform durable solutions planning and response, such as settlement and area-based approaches, urban profiling and severity assessments. By showcasing concrete examples of promising practices to harness data to better respond to internal displacement in urban contexts, the panel aims to inform and guide local authorities and other actors, empowering them to incorporate such tools and approaches in their own development plans and strategies. To this end, the session has 3 key objectives:
1. Contextualize Solutions: Translate the global to the local and vice versa, emphasizing the importance of solutions linked to development and local planning, and fostering urban environments conducive to self-reliance and local integration.
2. Inform Decision-Making: Demonstrate how local authorities can better incorporate data and analysis tools into their processes to design effective policies and programs to support IDPs’ in their pathway towards solutions and to inform sustainable urban planning.
3. Advocate for inclusive approaches: Promote the inclusion of affected communities and local actors in the development of solutions plans that respond to their needs and priorities.