A/HRC/13/21 exclusion from basic services and even stigmatization. Unlike those remaining in their homes, the displaced leave their property behind, risking its occupation by others and creating the challenge of how to have it restored. They may not be able to replace lost documentation or participate freely in elections. Finally, displaced people alone are in need of finding a durable solution to their displacement. 54. Displacement exacerbates pre-existing vulnerabilities and creates new ones. In many crisis situations the displaced, especially children and the elderly among them, are disproportionally affected by malnutrition and a lack of potable water.25 According to the World Health Organization, internally displaced persons are particularly exposed to health hazards.26 In urban settings, internally displaced persons are often worse off than the nondisplaced urban poor.27 People displaced to locations where they constitute an ethnic, religious or other minority face particular problems.28 55. Persons with multiple vulnerabilities and needs are often overlooked, especially where no authority or humanitarian organization is specifically mandated to protect them. The Representative found that the elderly, persons with disabilities and members of indigenous peoples, who often face particular problems in adapting to new environments, are regularly neglected in displacement situations. C. Working with States to assume their responsibilities towards the displaced 56. The Representative notes the increasing efforts of many States to assume their primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons (Guiding Principle 3 (1)). At the same time, many of the most serious and intractable displacement situations can be found in weak States that have little capacity to assume their responsibilities. The Representative has been engaged in several situations where State authorities had failed to exercise their responsibility towards the displaced and consequently international humanitarian, political, and military actors tried to substitute for the State, typically under conditions of precarious security and shrinking humanitarian space. This issue becomes particularly vexing when the State itself deliberately and arbitrarily displaced the very people it is then called upon to protect and assist. 57. In emergency situations, a certain degree of substitution on the part of the international community for State authority is often unavoidable and necessary to save lives. In the medium to long run, however, substitution is not a sustainable approach given that the capacity, deployment period and understanding of the dynamics on the ground of the international community are typically limited. 58. The Representative considers that greater efforts have to be made on the part of the international community to work with national and local authorities in weak States and strengthen their capacities, instead of taking the easier short cut of substitution that often leads to a dead end. Encouraging the development of laws and policies on internal displacement can be a first step to engaging the relevant authorities. Laws and policies of course do not automatically result in action on the ground, but they are a necessary 25 26 27 28 14 See e.g. A/HRC/13/21/Add.2, para. 49. Protection of Internally Displaced Persons, IASC Policy Paper Series, No. 2, 1999, p. 21. See, e.g. Karen Jacobsen (Feinstein International Center, Tufts University) and IDMC, Internal Displacement to Urban Areas: the Tufts-IDMC Profiling Study Khartoum, Sudan: Case 1 (2008), p. 8. See e.g. A/HRC/13/21/Add.2, para. 19. GE.10-10161