POLICY BRIEFS
BLOGS
By Thomas Mulder and Jane McAdam | Apr 17, 2026
Countries around the world are currently negotiating the first-ever global treaty dedicated to protecting people affected by disasters. The treaty on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disasters—due to be adopted in 2027—aims to improve how States prevent, prepare for and respond to disasters. At the most recent negotiations in New York in April 2026, States signalled their broad support for the treaty’s objectives, including respect for human rights, disaster risk reduction and cooperation to assist countries most affected by climate-related hazards. However, there is a significant omission: disaster-related displacement. This is concerning given that displacement is often one of the most serious and lasting impacts of disasters, which are occurring with greater frequency and intensity. In this blog post, Thomas Mulder and Jane McAdam explain why failing to address displacement risks leaving the treaty out of step with reality. If the treaty is truly to protect people in disasters, it must confront displacement directly—not treat it as an afterthought.
By Walter Kälin | Feb 12, 2026
This timely article by one of the world's leading experts on internal displacement highlights the growing crisis of climate-related internal displacement, which is unfolding against the backdrop of drastic funding cuts and humanity's apparent failure to adequately mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Arguing that the world is ill-prepared to address the crisis, including the severe challenges faced by populations living in protracted displacement, the author outlines a bold strategy for change. The blog calls on all stakeholders to acknowledge the severity of loss and damage related to displacement and prioritise durable solutions programming. It also highlights the systemic and financial changes required, including the need to make the still-elusive 'humanitarian-development nexus' a reality. Ultimately, the author makes separate but related recommendations to the United Nations, country donors and affected countries on how, through collaborative multi-year programming, the process of loss associated with displacement can be reversed and deliver sustainable improvements for affected populations.
By Walter Kälin and Peter de Clercq | Sep 30, 2025
This provocative think piece argues that the current "humanitarian reset", intended under the UN 80 New Humanitarian Compact, may not constitute a reset at all, to the detriment of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and their host communities. Lacking sufficient "blue sky thinking", the compartmentalised processes undertaken by UN agencies focus primarily on "doing the same – or less – with less money" rather than enabling more productive country-level action, including addressing durable solutions for people displaced in the context of disasters and climate change. Whilst cost savings are surely needed, without a fresh and inclusive vision of how the UN can use its limited resources to help States achieve the goals and purposes of the UN Charter in a radically changing world, the UN80 initiative risks failure. The authors warn that IDPs, who already suffer from funding and programming gaps, may not see the improvements that they and their communities truly need.
By David Cantor and Beatriz Sánchez-Mojica | May 7, 2025
Internal displacement is addressed directly or indirectly across a range of international frameworks in regimes as varied as human rights, international humanitarian law, disaster response, climate change and sustainable development, as well as the regime specifically addressing the situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs). This raises questions about whether these frameworks are coherent in terms of the norms and approaches relating to internal displacement. Ultimately, the paper argues that these other frameworks supplement those of the IDP regime in useful ways. It asks whether the time has come to update the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement in light of these broader norms and approaches.
By Internal Displacement Research Programme | Apr 9, 2025
The short piece introduces Researching Internal Displacement’s new series on ‘Internal Displacement in the Context of Organised Criminal Violence’. It also serves as the Preface to a collection of five articles in the series developed by experts at the Internal Displacement Research Programme (IDRP) of the Refugee Law Initiative in collaboration with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in relation to her 2025 Call for Inputs on this theme. You may download the collection by clicking on the “Download PDF Version” link near the bottom of the article page. We welcome new contributions to this series.
By Lucy Szaboova, Ann-Christine Link, Kees van der Geest, Jacqueline Demeranville, and Giorgia Prati | Apr 2, 2025
This paper looks at climate-induced losses and damages occurring at the intersection of rural livelihoods and human mobility (displacement, planned relocation, migration and immobility), a consequential and growing problem for climate-vulnerable nations and their rural communities. Referencing the newly released guiding framework and toolkit for climate adaptation and mitigation planning developed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), the authors discuss how, with inclusive and transformative planning and action, many of the losses and damages experienced in this nexus can be reduced or avoided.
The authors of this article, who developed the guiding framework and toolkit, urge those involved in adaptation and mitigation planning to work with agriculture and rural development actors and affected communities to integrate rural livelihood and human mobility considerations into National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
WORKING PAPERS
Working Paper No. 50 By Steve Miron, Dyuti Tasnuva Rifat, Tanjib Islam | Feb 25, 2026
| IDRP
Researching Internal Displacement is pleased to make this case study available as a stand-alone publication. Excerpted from a recent research and advocacy report by the Refugee Law Initiative, this case study of an urban informal settlement in Tongi, Bangladesh, examines the lived experience of loss and damage among people displaced in the context of climate change and left behind in climate action.
Encouragingly, the case study also highlights a promising 'good practice' development intervention by the SAJIDA Foundation. In the case study, programme participants describe how Sajida’s multifaceted approach, which empowers women and girls, encourages positive behaviour change and prioritises psychosocial wellbeing across multiple programme workstreams, has helped restore agency, self-sufficiency and hope. SAJIDA’s programme shows how protracted displacement and associated losses and damages can be addressed and are not inevitable.
Working Paper No. 49 By Steven Miron, Dyuti Tasnuva Rifat, Tanjib Islam | Oct 21, 2025
| IDRP
Foregrounding the voices of people living in three different communities of displacement in Bangladesh, this field research and advocacy report examines the nexus of climate change, loss and damage and displacement. This comprehensive report highlights promising interventions by Bangladeshi civil society organisations that have helped internally displaced people (IDPs) living in protracted displacement move toward durable solutions. It also examines positive developments on the policy front, including Bangladesh's fledgling National Strategy on Internal Displacement Management (NSIDM). At the same time, it calls attention to how Bangladesh's protracted displacement crisis remains under acknowledged and therefore under addressed in national policy and programming.
The findings and recommendations in this report are intended to inform the UNFCCC's Loss and Damage mechanism – the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage (SNLD) and the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) ExCom, including its Taskforce on Displacement. Each must urgently demonstrate its commitment to addressing the growing displacement crisis and supporting durable solution programming. The report's findings and recommendations are also relevant to intergovernmental, governmental and civil society organisations working in and outside Bangladesh. Furthermore, the report suggests how conventional durable solutions approaches to displacement must evolve to remain relevant in a world of escalating losses and damages resulting from climate change.