Afghanistan’s 1.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs) face multiple obstacles to reaching durable solutions. To help address these, the Government of Afghanistan adopted a National IDP Policy in 2014. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has supported the implementation of this policy through helping to develop Provincial Action Plans (PAP).
To inform the development of the PAP in the western province of Herat, the government, supported by UN agencies and NGOs, including NRC, conducted a profiling survey in five informal settlements populated by protracted IDPs.
The survey findings highlighted that a significant number of IDPs – 12,462 individuals – in those settlements do not have tazkera. Without tazkera, they cannot own land, obtain a government job, access formal education or the state justice system, have restricted access to humanitarian assistance and lack many other rights that are key to reaching durable solutions.
There are currently many barriers for displaced people seeking to obtain a tazkera, including complex procedures, lack of a digitalised central database, socio-cultural norms and corruption. In particular, the requirement that applicants petition the Population Registration Department (PRD) in their place of origin or Kabul is very costly in terms of both time and finances. It also means taking considerable security risks in places of origin beset by violence and conflict.