Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR Representative in Ukraine took part in the Forum “Internal displacement in Ukraine: current challenges and prospective solutions”.
On 30 September – 1 October the Council of Europe Project “Internal Displacement in Ukraine: Building Solutions. Phase II” held the Forum “Internal displacement in Ukraine: current challenges and prospective solutions”.
The event caried out in hybrid format at the initiative and in co-operation with the Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine.
Over 100 participants took part, including representatives of national executive authorities, local self-government bodies, international and national organizations.
The Forum was welcomed by Mr Oleksii Reznikov, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine; Ms Lilja Gretarsdottir, Head of Co-operation Programmes Division, Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law, Council of Europe, and Ms Anastasiia Perepelytsya, IDP activist, advisor to the Ministry of reintegration on IDP issues.
International partners reflected on the progress of responding to the consequences of internal displacement and provided recommendations on overcoming current challenges, Mr Andreas Papaconstantinou, Director of “Neighbourhood and Middle East” in the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO); Ms Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR Representative in Ukraine, and Мr Steen Norlov, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine.
The following issues were discussed in parallel sections of the Forum: social allowance and pensions for IDPs; transitional justice and the context of internal displacement; integration of IDP children and youth; coordination of the Government of Ukraine with development partners; digitization of services for IDPs and the conflict-affected population; housing for IDPs, compensation for damaged housing as well as legislative regulation of the protection of property rights of victims of armed aggression.
There were thematic installations placed at the Forum: paining exhibition “Za mezheyu” (“Beyond the Border”), photo exhibition “Inshe Zhuttya” (“Another Life”) and objects of the War Childhood Museum Ukraine.
Participants welcomed the draft of the National Strategy for the Integration of IDPs and the implementation of durable solutions on internal displacement until 2023”, which was successfully passed by the Government Committee and recommended for approval by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
Practical recommendations elaborated at the Forum would form the basis of the Action Plan to the National Strategy after its adoption.
Review the Forum by the link:
1st day: Ukrainian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFKNVxpaheA, English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGmWK2a3cMg
2nd day: Ukrainian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj5GI0W46Qs, English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA6zKeKYWCg
Please, read the FULL STATEMENT of Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR Representative in Ukraine:
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished audience,
I would like to start by thanking His Excellency, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, Oleksii Reznikov, and Lilja Gretarsdottir and the Council of Europe for inviting the UN, through the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Osnat Lubrani and myself on behalf of UNHCR to speak on this panel. The Resident Coordinator conveys her sincere apologies for not being available to join, and wishes us all a successful Forum.
UNHCR has been operationally involved with internally displaced persons for the past 40 years. As early as 1972, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) called on the High Commissioner for Refugees to extend assistance to both returning refugees and “persons displaced within the country”. Since then, the number of internally displaced persons have increased dramatically; today, more than 48 million people are forcibly displaced within their own countries.
UNHCR adopted a new Policy on its engagement in Situations of Internal Displacement in 2019, and launched an IDP Initiative for 2020-2021, in which Ukraine was selected as one of 9 focus countries highlighted, given all the progress made to address protection issues of IDPs. In February this year, UNHCR published Key Considerations on Unlocking Solutions for Internally Displaced. The paper identifies 7 key considerations for the planning and implementation of solutions-oriented programs. These have also been outlined in UNHCR’s submission to the High-Level on Internal Displacement, which presented its report yesterday. UNHCR’s submission contained examples from Ukraine, based on input we collected with our partners IOM, NRC and DRC, and received through a unique and inspiring round table consultation with Mayors and other representatives from local authorities.
I will only focus on a few of the 7 key considerations in my intervention, and reflect on progress made and challenges to overcome from the Ukraine perspective.
The two first key considerations are about the importance of basing strategies and programmes on evidence about IDPs’ needs and capacities and on ensuring that the perspectives and views of IDPs are central in the planning and implementation of solutions.
In Ukraine, we have a relatively good understanding of the profile and situation of IDPs, and regularly consult them on the opportunities and remaining challenges for attaining a durable solution. UNHCR is one of the actors that contribute to the evidence-base, through our bi-annual Participatory Assessments involving consultations with hundreds of IDPs around the country. We also conduct Protection Monitoring in 156 settlements close to the contact line to inform our collective understanding of the needs and capacities of the affected population, and the design of programs to, for example, increase the capacity of administrative, social and health services.
The Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories has embedded an IDP within its ministry to serve as an advisor to IDP issues and numerous municipalities have established IDP Councils or have advisors from the IDP community who advise on the development of policies and procedures to facilitate the inclusion and integration of IDPs.
The ability of IDPs to express their views and participate in political decision making has also been ensured through the Verkhovna Rada’s adoption in December 2019 of a new Electoral Code of Ukraine and amendments to the Law on the State Register of Voters, which ensure IDPs the right to vote in all elections. This development has been showcased as a good practice by the Global Protection Clusters in a compilation of national practices to prevent, address and find durable solutions to internal displacement.
There are many more initiatives ongoing that enable us to know the intentions and priorities of IDPs. From these, we know that the majority of IDPs are intending to remain and integrate where they have settled, and are currently not planning to return to their previous residence,.
In terms of challenges to overcome, we believe that there is still room for greater inclusion of IDPs in the design and elaboration of strategies and different programs aimed at addressing their situation. One idea could be to establish a civil council consisting of IDPs serving as community representatives at the Ministry of Reintegration, to channel suggestions and issues from IDP communities and advise on the design of decisions affecting IDPs.
Another of the 7 key considerations in UNHCR’s paper on Unlocking Solutions for Internally Displaced is access to housing, land and property as critical for solutions, since it’s a problem that IDPs face in all countries with internal displacement.
Access to affordable housing is indeed one of the key priorities repeatedly expressed by IDPs in Ukraine in the consultative fora I mentioned. In Ukraine, 50,000 households are estimated to have had their home destroyed or damaged in the conflict, and others have abandoned their property during the flight. Many are still struggling to find and afford a new house or apartment in their current location.
A lot has been done over the years to respond to this need, including through the State budget subvention for social and temporary housing, which can be a targeted solution for some vulnerable IDPs. To help access this, UNHCR’s partners work with gromadas at local level to help them apply. Another is Resolution # 767 on compensation for destroyed or heavily damaged housing, adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers in 2020. UNHCR’s legal aid partners are helping IDPs and conflict affected persons apply for compensation; as of today, 337 individuals have received compensation and more are in the process. We also welcome the development of the new draft law #5177 to further increase access to compensation.
In terms of challenges still to overcome in the area of housing, one relates to collective centres, where an estimated 6,000-7,000 IDPs live in substandard and undignified conditions. We believe there is no ‘one solution fits all’ to their situation, but that we need a comprehensive understanding of the profile and situation of the individuals living in these centres and their individual needs and aspirations, as well as their involvement in designing tailored solutions. UNHCR is ready to contribute to such an endeavor.
Another challenge to overcome is the lack of social housing for IDPs in such need. Some social dormitories have been established over the years by municipalities, with funding from the EU and others, in some cases with the support from Ukrainian Fund of Social Investment. But more are needed for IDPs with specific vulnerabilities living in central, western, southern Ukraine, and who will not manage to buy or rent an apartment.
The last consideration I would like to mention from the Unlocking Solutions paper relates to the benefits of inclusion and costs of exclusion. The paper refers to a study by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) which finds that internal displacement cost the world about 20 billion USD in 2019. The greatest cost of forcible displacement is undoubtedly the human cost – the suffering due to loss of family members and one’s home and dignity. It would, however, be interesting to analyze the economic impact of the remaining challenges to inclusion, as the majority of IDPs express that their wish is to integrate as fully-included members of the communities in which they have settled [in the absence of an ability to return to their former home].
One of the barriers to full inclusion, in terms of equal access to social protection, housing and the labour market, has turned out to be the IDP registration.
Why is that so?: For an IDP living in eg Kyiv, Kharkiv or Odesa, she needs to present, and in case of need, renew her IDP certificate regularly to be eligible to access different state services and benefits, such as pensions, documentation, banking and educational institutions in her place of residence. At the same time, residents in the same city, who were never displaced, do not need any particular certificate to access the same services. Consequently, IDPs are not treated on par with other residents, which hampers their full integration into their new communities. Residents in NGCA and Crimea have particular difficulties renewing their IDP registration and, for example, accessing pensions, as they need to cross the contact line or administrative boundary with the temporarily occupied Crimea, which is subject to restrictions.
IDPs regularly raise this challenge in our consultations, from several perspectives: for some, it has become a real obstacle to accessing social protection and pensions, while others say that they do not want to remain registered as an IDP, as they have de facto integrated, found a job and an apartment, and no longer need any specific IDP assistance; they also do not want to be considered/labelled an IDP.
Several countries have established special administrative IDP-registers, to have comprehensive data on IDP populations. Registration in these systems is often linked to access to government services and support, with those registered becoming eligible for certain IDP-specific services and benefits. In addition to Ukraine, this is the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia and Georgia.
While IDP-registration was introduced in Ukraine late 2014 as a tool to identify the scale and location of displacement, and identify IDPs eligible for targeted assistance for utility costs, it has now – 7 years later –in some ways become a barrier to integration. All countries that have a long-standing experience in implementing laws and policies on internal displacement and collecting data on IDPs seem to be grappling with the question of inactivation or de-registration, and how to measure when a durable solution has been attained.
One of the aspects being considered is how to reform the registration process to enable a move from ‘status based’ to ‘needs based’.
Even though no study has been made on the costs of exclusion, we believe there are great benefits of fully including IDPs as equal residents in their new communities, not least for social cohesion.
Over the years, a lot has been done by the Ukrainian central and local authorities, and host communities to facilitate inclusion of IDPs. I have met with several Mayors who have stressed that they do not want to label people as IDPs, but rather communicate that people who have been displaced into their communities should be embraced as fully included members and valuable, skilled resources who contribute to their society’s development.
During the 4 months since I took up my assignment with UNHCR in Ukraine, I have spoken with many women, men and youth who have been internally displaced and shared their experiences of building a new home and life. They have told me about the steps they took to find a new job and apartment, enroll their children in new schools and their efforts to get to know their new community. My strongest impression from these conversations is that they are incredibly determined, resilient, adaptable and active in their efforts to stand on their own feet and live a life in dignity, and that they are not seeking anyone’s pity. They just need an enabling environment – the basic conditions for being able to get on with their lives and become fully integrated members of their communities. And they are the ones best placed to inform us what those basic conditions are – the conditions that will unlock durable solutions.
This Forum us a very good platform to further increase their regular participation and inclusion in the design and implementation of policies and programs aimed at facilitating their ability to find a durable solution. Let’s all include this Forum’s outcomes into the everyday work of central and local authorities, humanitarian and development partners, civil society organizations and private sector actors. UNHCR is certainly committed to doing so. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to contribute to this important Forum.
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