The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq has launched the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) policy.
Launching the document during the Ministry’s humanitarian open house on Tuesday in Abuja, the Minister said the IDPs policy will provide a framework for national responsibility towards the prevention and protection of internally displaced individuals.
Recall that the Federal Executive Council approved the National Policy on Internally Displaced Persons in 2021, to strengthen institutional mechanism and frameworks for the realisation of the rights, dignity and wellbeing of vulnerable populations through the mitigation of impact and achievement of durable solutions to internal displacement in Nigeria.
Laying emphasis on the content of the document, Farouq said “the policy spells out principles guiding humanitarian assistance and implementation of durable solutions in situations of internal displacement in Nigeria and has adopted the human rights-based approach and its principles.
“It integrated the provisions of existing international conventions, treaties and protocols on internal displacement, guided by the dictates of international humanitarian and human rights laws.
“This policy, therefore, draws extensively on the guidance of international and national frameworks on the prevention of internal displacement, as well as those on protection and assistance of internally displaced persons”.
The Minister further inaugurated a National Coordination Working Committee to ensure effective and efficient implementation of the policy.
She charged the committee and other relevant stakeholders to commence elaboration of implementation plan with clear roles and responsibilities of all actors.
Also, the Humanitarian Minister explained that the domestication of African Union Kampala Convention is in progress.
“We have commenced the standalone process of domesticating African Union Kampala convention.
“The relevant stakeholders is hereby chardged to come up with the draft bill for onward presentation to the FEC and the transmitted to the National Assembly for necessary legislative action.
“The Kampala Convention, the UN Guiding Principles on internal displacement and the Sphere Minimum Standards for Humanitarian Assistance have significantly defined the direction of this policy.” She said.
The humanitarian open house is a platform designed to ensure flow of correct and consistent information dissemination of the ministry’s activities to the media and other relevant stakeholders.
Speaking further, the Minister said “the Open House will encourage a nexus of interchange of ideas, enable the media practitioners report from an informed position as well as give stakeholders and partners first-hand information they can share across their various platforms.
“Through this programme we hope to provide a more engaging platform for the Ministry to lead the way through connectivity, enable more synergy and cooperation between stakeholders to support and empower more people, create more possibilities, provide access to more solutions, make things happen faster and support the growing ranks of people of concern to access more interventions”.
The Minister also reeled out the achievements of the humanitarian Ministry. Other activities were tour through the humanitarian hub and the presentation of the ministry’s brochure to the general public.
The theme of the event is ‘Coordinating for Durable Humanitarian Solutions; the Journey so far.’
