Thank you very much for this question, which has been around in the UNHCR for quite a few years. Let me give you a bit of an update on where we stand.
You're right that, out of the 65 million displaced people in the world, only 21 million are refugees. The rest are internally displaced.
For a long time, UNHCR has looked at the issue of the internally displaced from a protection angle, saying that since we need to also prevent their displacement as refugees, we need to do something before people leave their country. Often when refugees return to their country, they return as internally displaced or among a population that has been internally displaced.
The discussion really started with the former high commissioner Aga Khan in the 1970s in Latin America. We took a lead within the United Nations on the protection aspect. That was really very much formalized at the time of Jan Egeland when he was the emergency relief coordinator. We're speaking of about 15 years ago, when there was a division of labour between the different United Nations organizations. OCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is coordinating the assistance for everyone, but there is somewhere between nine and 12 clusters, as we call them: protection, telecommunications, shelter, WASH, education, which have been assigned to different agencies in internal displacement. UNICEF does WASH and education. WFP does food and telecommunication; it's called logistics, I think. UNHCR has the mandate of shelter and protection because of our expertise.
The coordination is a challenge, as in every single family. I don't need to go into the details, but it works well in terms of ensuring that we do common needs assessments and we respond to the humanitarian needs. As far as UNHCR is concerned, we need to keep the distinction between refugees and internally displaced people because it's a question of sovereignty of the state. As the human rights committee, you are best placed to know that as long as people are within and can still avail themselves of the protection of each state, it's very difficult for us to intervene; whereas when people are outside, we can even do resettlement, as in the case of Canada, for which we are very grateful in terms of the numbers, by the way.
The distinction has to remain from a legal point of view, but in terms of responding to the need, we don't make any distinction. A rape victim, whether internally displaced or a refugee, for UNHCR is a rape victim. We need to provide psychosocial, medical, and legal help and rehabilitation, livelihood opportunities, and so on. There's no distinction.
The question of the camps is an important one in a situation like that of South Sudan. We do not advocate for camps for displaced populations because they are extremely complicated to manage from a security point of view. They are extremely complicated to manage in terms of the logistics. Yes, in a way it's simpler because you establish your own clinics and your own schools, but you also disenfranchise the displaced population from the host community and don't allow them, as in the case of Uganda, to actually contribute to the local economy and to the development of the part of the country. We are moving away from a camp-based policy for displaced populations.
In the case of South Sudan, as you probably know, a number of people took refuge in the UN compounds. That is quite complicated for us to manage, especially when there is not a Security Council resolution, which allows the peacekeepers to use force to protect civilians. We have the situation in eastern DRC where the Security Council has given the specific mandate, but as far as I know, it has not been given in the case of South Sudan. Therefore, people come to our compound, but when the compound is attacked, there is not much we can do. You may remember that two years ago, or a year and a half ago, there were some humanitarian workers who were actually attacked and raped. A young woman was raped, and the peacekeepers were around this hotel and could not do anything because they were overwhelmed by the firepower of the group.
There's always room for improvement, but I would like to conclude by saying that there is a division of labour within the United Nations in terms of internal displacement.
The real issue, in my view, if I may offer my own suggestion, is the whole question of the protection of civilians. I think the United Nations has not yet found the magic formula—and not only the United Nations, I think, but the NGOs, their partners—to protect civilians in the nature of that kind of conflict. I was not born in the 19th century, but we used to be better at that, because the laws of war were more clear. There was one group and then another group.