Beyond policy formulation, the necessary step towards effective protection: limits and ambiguities of the international response to the crisis of internal displacement in Colombia

Abstract

The present thesis analyses the response of the major international agencies and donors operating in Colombia to one of the largest and most sustained forced displacement crisis worldwide. It focuses on activities and programmes aimed at creating an environment conducive to respect for human beings, preventing and alleviating the immediate effects of specific patterns of abuse and restoring dignified conditions of life through reparation, restitution and rehabilitation. The first part presents the context in which international protection activities take place and the challenges they face. After describing the great protection needs of Colombian IDPs, it lines out the highly elaborated domestic protection framework and its flawed implementation. The second part of this analysis outlines shortly the space devoted to protection concerns in the UN collaborative approach, reviews concrete international protection activities, their impact and, finally, identifies a number of factors undermining the effectiveness of international protection strategies. Emphasising the prominence of advocacy and capacity building among the activities led to prompt the State to take up its responsibilities towards the uprooted, one of the conclusions of the thesis is that reluctance of donor governments and United Nations’ senior officials to approach politically sensitive issues in their dialogue with Colombian authorities is the major obstacle to the effectiveness of international community’s protection strategies.