Many are surprised to learn that IRIN is a UN service. Housed within the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), IRIN offers editorially independent coverage of humanitarian situations. Ten years ago the creation of IRIN marked the start…
In June, Walter Kälin, the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, visited Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro including Kosovo. Throughout the region he found that, several years after the armed conflicts of…
The Global IDP Project recently took the exceptional decision to extend its training support – usually for people displaced by conflict and violence – to actors involved in the post-tsunami recovery process in Aceh, Indonesia, where some 500,000 people are…
A seminar on internal displacement in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region was held in Gaborone, Botswana, 24-26 August 2005. Sponsored by UNHCR and the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement[1], it brought together a wide range of actors, including…
In October 2005 I undertook a mission to study the situation of IDPs and returnees to the South. I realised that the Sudanese authorities, the international community and donors need to do much more to ensure the protection of the…
Fellowship for African Relief (FAR)[1] is working to address the needs of IDPs at key points along the returnee route. Provision of services along the whole returnee route is critical to the return process: at points of displacement (such as…
The IRC/UNDP Human Rights and Rule of Law training programme was launched in September 2004 with the support of tribal leaders in Darfur and the endorsement of state and federal authorities. Human rights training courses and workshops have been attended…
Although UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) specifically mandates women’s participation in peace processes, Sudanese women have been consistently sidelined by North-South and Darfur peace processes. Although many women’s organisations were registered observers with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)…
The ink on the Sudanese peace agreement is hardly dry. Afghanistan is far from reconstructed. And yet the aid community prepares for its move from Afghanistan and other conflict zones to set up camp in Sudan. Sudan is currently at…
For years Sudanese women have been involved in community peace building and advocacy for inclusion in the formal peace negotiations. Yet despite Sudan’s commitment to the Beijing Platform for Action, policy recommendations of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and…