Introduction 2016 was a year in which the global focus on refugees and migrants contrasted with little political attention to the millions of people displaced within their countries by conflict, violence and disaster. As the year progressed, global policy commitments to IDPs gradually lost momentum. The plight and needs of IDPs featured prominently during discussions at the World Humanitarian Summit in May: the UN Secretary-General called for renewed efforts to prevent internal displacement, address its root causes and support safe, dignified and durable solutions for internally displaced people, and suggested to establish a target of halving internal displacement globally by 2030. Several months later, however, IDPs were out of sight and out of mind once again, and they ended up largely excluded from the outcomes of the UN’s Summit for Refugees and Migrants in September. The single reference to IDPs in the New York Declaration pointed to links between internal displacement and large movements of migrants and refugees. However, addressing internal displacement was recognised mostly as a way of mitigating large cross-border movements of vulnerable people. The current focus on refugees and migrants and the UN General Assembly’s collective commitment to sharing responsibility for refugees are important signs in these times of fragile solidarity. There is a real risk, however, that as political efforts are focused on strengthening borders, less attention will be paid to what happens behind them. This has implications not only for refugees and migrants in transit and for those being returned to their countries of origin, but also for those who stay behind. This year’s GRID seeks to redress this imbalance and puts the spotlight onto internal displacement as a key challenge of our times. Part 1 of the report, “On the GRID” presents the figures and trends on the scale and patterns of conflict and disaster-related displacement worldwide during 2016, shining a spotlight on countries of particular concern. Part 2 of the report, “Off the GRID” responds to the overshadowing of IDPs in the 2016 policy landscape described above by examining the evidence on the relationship between internal and cross-border displacement. Part 3 of the report, “Inside the GRID” presents some of the methodological and conceptual A newly displaced woman walks with two children at a check point in Qayyara, south of Mosul, Iraq. Photo © UNICEF/UN040092/ Romenzi, October 2016 Global Report on Internal Displacement 2017 5