Meeting the Needs of IDPs: Time to Rethink the Approach

In May 2000, Richard Holbrooke, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, called attention to the failure of the humanitarian community to address the needs of "internal refugees." These people, unlike refugees, had not crossed an international border. Nevertheless, they were displaced by war and violence and had experienced the same trauma and the same loss of property and livelihood, and faced the same future uncertainty as refugees.