WORKING PAPERS

ON INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT

Our Working Papers on Internal Displacement series publishes original research on internal displacement and internally displaced persons.

The series provides an Open Access platform for publishing high-quality paper-length research by members of the networks hosted on the Researching Internal Displacement website as well as by other researchers on internal displacement.

Working Papers are prominently displayed as a resource for scholars and practitioners worldwide. Papers may be submitted in English, French, Spanish or Arabic. See the criteria for publication here.

Publish your PAPER

As a ‘one-stop shop’ for outputs from the networks hosted on the Researching Internal Displacement website, the series also reprints Working Papers published by those networks, including the IDRP Working Paper Series and GENIDA Working Papers.

For further information, and to submit a paper to the Working Papers on Internal Displacement, please contact the series Editor:

Desplazamiento interno en Ecuador: Soledad en la respuesta institucional

Working Paper No. 54

By Gabriela Malo

| July 22, 2026

En el Ecuador ha aumentado en la década de 2020 la actividad de grupos criminales dedicados al narcotráfico transnacional, minería ilegal y actividades complementarias. Ante la ausencia de respuestas estatales a sus problemas, un número creciente de habitantes opta por escapar. En un contexto del que se tiene escasa información, este trabajo aporta a la comprensión de un fenómeno en el que las familias dependen de su propia iniciativa y capital social para decidir si desplazarse y a dónde ir. Se analizan las responsabilidades del Estado ante el desplazamiento interno, constatando que con pocas excepciones, no existe una respuesta nacional ante este fenómeno. También se describe uno de los pocos casos de desplazamiento masivo que han tenido visibilidad pública: el caso de los indígenas Chachi en la provincia de Esmeraldas.

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The Impact of Funding Cuts on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Haiti and South Sudan

Working Paper No. 53

By Kadidjatou Sawadogo

| June 30, 2026

The working paper examines the impact of humanitarian funding contractions on the realisation of economic and social rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Haiti and South Sudan. Drawing on a human rights-based framework, documentary analysis, and key informant interviews, it analyses how reductions in humanitarian assistance affected access to adequate food and healthcare in contexts of protracted displacement, institutional fragility, and humanitarian dependence. The findings show that funding cuts reduced food assistance, disrupted health services, suspended mobile clinics, and weakened nutrition coverage for displaced populations. Humanitarian actors adopted hyper-prioritisation approaches that focused on life‑saving interventions but left significant protection and socio‑economic needs unaddressed.

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False Narratives and the Reality of History: The Deportation of Soviet Koreans in 1937

Working Paper No. 52

By German Kim, Ekaterina Pesegova (transl.)

| June 4, 2026

This working paper highlights the relatively unknown deportation of Soviet Koreans, the first of several state deportations based on ethnicity carried out by the Soviet Union. The forced displacement, mainly to Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, was highly classified during Soviet times, leading to misunderstandings and subsequent misrepresentations of the event by Western scholars and the creation of multiple inaccurate narratives, including that of ethnic cleansing. By conducting an interdisciplinary study, the author critically analyses widespread misconceptions about the deportation of the Soviet Koreans and provides objective data on the issue and its long-lasting effects on the Soviet Koreans who survived deportation and their descendants.

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Rethinking Planned Relocation as Social Protection In an Era of Increasing Climate Change Risks

Working Paper No. 51

By Tomy Ncube and Una Murray

| March 12, 2026

As climate impacts intensify, planned relocation is increasingly deployed as an adaptation strategy, yet outcomes for relocated communities remain consistently adverse. This paper argues that these failures stem from the treatment of planned relocation as a short-term, projectised disaster response rather than as a long-term developmental intervention. Drawing on social protection theory, this paper reconceptualises planned relocation as a form of social assistance, capable of delivering durable solutions. It demonstrates that planned relocation inherently performs preventive, protective, promotive, and potentially transformative social protection functions by minimising future climate risks, providing non-contributory transfers such as land and housing, and enabling livelihood reconstruction. However, when implemented outside formal social protection systems, these functions may collapse, often resulting in impoverishment and protracted displacement.

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Moving Towards Solutions: Addressing Loss and Damage from Protracted Displacement in Bangladesh

Working Paper No. 50

By Steve Miron, Dyuti Tasnuva Rifat, Tanjib Islam

| February 25, 2026

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.

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Missing in (Climate) Action? Displaced Communities and the Search for Durable Solutions: Bangladesh as a loss and damage case study

Working Paper No. 49

By Steven Miron, Dyuti Tasnuva Rifat, Tanjib Islam

| October 23, 2025

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.

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Women’s Experiences of Internal Displacement and Relocation in the context of Hydrometeorological Events in Communities of the Dry Corridor of Guatemala

RID Working Paper No. 48

By Ana Paredes Marín y Alejandra Barrios Ariano

| July 3, 2025

This Working Paper shows that women's experiences of forced internal displacement in Guatemala's Dry Corridor reveal how hydrometeorological events, such as hurricanes and droughts, exacerbate structural inequalities, including gender inequalities.

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Experiencias de desplazamiento forzado interno y reubicación de mujeres en contexto de eventos hidrometeorológicos en comunidades del Corredor Seco de Guatemala

RID Working Paper No. 48

By Ana Paredes Marín y Alejandra Barrios Ariano

| July 3, 2025

Este documento de trabajo muestra que las experiencias de desplazamiento forzado interno de mujeres en el Corredor Seco de Guatemala evidencian cómo los eventos hidrometeorológicos, como huracanes y sequías, agravan las desigualdades estructurales entre esas, la de género.

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Echoes from the Past, Shadows on the Present: Colonial Legacies and Internal Displacement in Kenya

Working Paper No. 47

By Marco Puzzolo

| May 15, 2025

This study contributes to the literature on conflict-driven displacement in post-colonial States. Focusing on the case study of Kenya, it examines internal displacement from a historical and decolonial perspective, analysing the interplay of colonial legacies, ethnicity, political violence, and land. While recent displacements in Kenya have been driven primarily by weather-related disasters, the paper argues that the underlying causes of contemporary conflict displacements are deeply rooted in ethno-political violence stemming from the country’s colonial history.

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