Navigating the nexus of displacement, policy, and governance

Internal displacement forces people from their homes due to conflicts, persecution, disasters, or crises within borders. Unlike refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) remain under national jurisdiction, lacking similar international safeguards. This editorial is an attempt to examine the complex interplay of internal displacement, policy frameworks, and governance amid a global crisis, with internal displacement affecting 123 million people, predominantly driven by conflicts, disasters, and systemic failures. The paper highlights disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups such as the elderly and second-generation displacees, while critiquing governance gaps, including resource shortages, administrative silos, and homogenised policy approaches. Stressing concepts of ontological security and rights-based approach, the authors call for a survivor-centred integrated Humanitarian, Development Peace (HDP) nexus, strategies that are proactive framework to foster social inclusion, ethical accommodation, and sustainable reintegration in line with the UN Guiding Principles.