challenges faced in trying to paint as complete a global picture as possible, and highlights the importance of reliable data in keeping internal displacement high on the global policy agenda. The increasing number of people displaced by conflict and violence in low-income countries presents considerable challenges to the achievement of the ambitious goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including those of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Paris Agreement on climate change. The pledge to “leave no one behind” at the heart of the 2030 Agenda recognises that the continued presence of vulnerable groups, including displaced people, affects the development prospects of the communities that host them and of societies as a whole. Unless more targeted and concerted efforts are directed at addressing internal displacement, the goal of significantly reducing numbers by 2030 is likely to recede further into the distance. This recognition has prompted new strategies and engagement by development agencies such as the World Bank, which is a significant step forward. That said, investment in addressing the structural drivers of conflict and disasters, and with it displacement risk, are not sufficiently prioritised. The new UN Secretary-General, António Guterres recognised this when he declared that conflict prevention would be the first priority of his tenure. Even for disasters, where there have been advances in international policy and national programmes on risk reduction, the vast majority of funding still goes to managing and responding to their impacts rather than pre-empting them. The steady rise over the past two decades in the number of IDPs and refugees has been mirrored by increases in humanitarian appeals and spending, but the funding gaps and the growing share of assistance spent within donor countries means that not enough is currently spent on countries with high levels of internal displacement. Spending on refugee resettlement within donor countries surpassed humanitarian financing for other countries for the first time in 2016 (see figure 1).1 In addition, overall bilateral aid to least-developed countries, including those with the highest levels of new displacement, fell by 3.9 per cent compared with 2015, as some Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members backtracked on a commitment to reverse past declines in flows to the poorest countries.2 Significant progress has been made over the past three decades in raising the profile of IDPs, but the grim figures set out in this report highlight that we are still far from meeting their needs in a satisfactory manner. The evidence underscores the need for a long-overdue paradigm shift: from a focus on meeting immediate needs to understanding the interwoven causes and structural drivers of displacement; and from offering solutions driven by institutional mandates to jointly investing in reducing vulnerability and mitigating the longer-term impacts of displacement. Without this paradigm shift, countries will continue to struggle to reduce the economic and social impacts of internal displacement, and the number of people whose lives are blighted by displacement around the world will only continue to rise. Figure 1: Comparison of the number of IDPs and refugees and humanitarian spending in donor countries and overseas, 2000 to 2016 Conflict IDPs Humanitarian spending overseas Humanitarian spending in donor countries Sources: IDMC for IDP data; UNHCR and UNRWA for refugee data (2016 figures not yet available); OECD for spending data 6 GRID 2017