Most of us are probably used to the idea of refugees, people who flee from one country to another to seek refuge. Indeed, images and stories of refugees are quite prevalent in news media globally. But what about those people who are forced suddenly to leave their homes due to armed conflict, violence, or disasters, but who do not end up fleeing to another country, but rather remain displaced within their own? The stories of these so-called internally displaced persons, or IDPs, are given much less attention in the global news media. How common then is the phenomenon of such conflict driven internal displacement? What is the scale of this kind of internal displacement globally? What is its impact on those societies where conflict affected IDPs live? Welcome to your first substantive course session, which introduces you to information on the scale, causes, and impacts of internal displacement. Our starting point is that armed conflicts and similar forms of serious violence represent one of the major drivers or push factors for internal displacement across the world. This will become evident as you start your reading for this session by looking at the extracts from the global reports on internal displacements or GRID, a report that's produced annually by a non-governmental organization called the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. The counting of IDPs in the GRID report suggests that if you put together the figures for the number of people who are internally displaced due to conflict and violence in many different countries around the world, global total would number in the tens of millions, equivalent to the population of a medium-sized country. In other words, conflict driven internal displacement represents a significant global challenge. To put this in context, see if you can find comparable statistics for refugees online. Do you think the global figure in the GRID report for the number of internally displaced persons in the world today is greater or smaller than the number of refugees at the moment? Why do you think this may be? These may be questions that you'd like to discuss on the program discussion forum. But which countries are particularly affected by this kind of internal displacement? Have another careful look at the GRID report, can you see which regions are most effected by internal displacement driven by conflict and violence? In general, as you read the figures in the GRID reports, you'll see that conflict driven internal displacement occurs principally in developing countries or the so-called global south. That's because the countries that nowadays experience active armed conflict are mostly located in the global south. In other words, in low and middle-income countries. Of course, it hasn't always been that way. Think for example, of the devastating conflicts of the two world wars or the more recent wars in the Balkans. But in today's world, conflict and thus conflict driven internal displacement tends to cluster in the world's poorer countries. As a result, IDPs tend to face a double disadvantage. By remaining within their own countries, not only do they continue to face dangers associated with the armed conflicts affecting those countries, but they are also exposed to the wider conditions of relative poverty prevailing there. However, in the case of IDPs specifically, that poverty is further exacerbated by their loss of access to land, housing, and other possessions due to the fact of being displaced. But if this is the case and their situation is so dire, then why do people become internally displaced? In most conflicts contexts, internal displacement represents a last ditch protection strategy. In other words, a way for people to try and protect themselves from the direct dangers of the conflicts by moving themselves out of harm's way. Clearly, in conflict affected populations, those people who choose not to displace can also face serious protection risks arising from exposure to the conflict and we should not neglect their needs. However, this does not diminish the fact that the negative effects of internal displacement can be extraordinarily far-reaching for IDPs. It beyond just the direct economic losses internal displacement as a phenomenon often simultaneously affects multiple core aspects of the lives of IDPs. You can start to get a sense of the extent of the trauma and damage done to the lives of those who end up as IDPs. By looking at the extracts from the report by Crystal [inaudible] on the so-called Ripple Effect, which you can find amongst the essential readings for this session. Indeed, in areas such as poverty and health, evidence suggests that IDPs often find themselves in a worse situation as compared both to other internal migrants and to refugees who flee the country altogether. On your essential reading list for this week, the briefing paper by Jacob Ochieng Apollo and me makes this point and gives some insight into why this might be. We also draw on recent research on social profiles to try and explain why it is that some people who flee the dangers of armed conflict stay within their own country whereas others leave the country as refugees. Do you think we're right on this point? That may be an issue you wish to take up in the discussion forums. Note, however, that as the GRID report also shows, internal displacement due to common environmental hazards, such as floods or hurricanes, is not confined to the countries of the global south, but equally affects countries in the global north. For instance, internal displacement driven by disasters took place on a large scale in the USA as a result of the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and similarly in Japan after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011. Such disasters can thus act as a driver of internal displacement in their own rights and separate from conflict. Even so, in conflict affected countries, such disasters can add yet another layer of risks for IDPs during displacement. Indeed, as you can see in the GRID report, there are many countries in the global south where conflicts and environmental hazards coexist and even interact as drivers of internal displacement. If you're interested in finding out more about how that kind of interaction between drivers of internal displacement plays out, then you should dip into the briefing paper by Beatriz Sanchez. There you can also find among the recommended further readings for this session. On this point about further readings, if you're looking to extend your understanding of any of the sessions in this course, then you are very welcome to have a look at the recommended readings. But I should emphasize that these recommended readings are not essential to complete the course. They're there purely if you have particular interest in one of the extension topics that they cover. For example, as an extension exercise for today's session about the empirical dynamics of internal displacement, you may be interested to read the short article by Amir Cruzan and Melvin Kovner that you can find among the recommended readings. This article seeks to unpicked the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on internal displacement dynamics. Overall though, the key point to take away from this week is that despite being less visible than refugee flows, internal displacement due to conflict and violence occurs on a significant scale globally and mainly affects poorer countries in the global south at present. Moreover, we've seen that such internal displacement often leads to a range of negative consequences for the individuals and societies whom it affects.
