A/HRC/16/43 policies to address the issue of internal displacement, many of which are based on the Guiding Principles.6 This has been reinforced by the 2006 Protocol on the Protection and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons (Great Lakes Protocol)7, which requires Member States to incorporate the Guiding Principles into domestic legislation. This mandate has already had a practice of engaging with States, including African States, in the development of national IDP policies and legislation. Most recently, it provided technical assistance earlier this year to Kenya in the elaboration of a draft national IDP policy. 59. The mandate intends to continue to actively engage with African States on the ratification and implementation of the Kampala Convention in a number of ways, including: by holding regional consultations and workshops with concerned States; providing technical advice and assistance in the formulation of national policies and legislation implementing the Convention; and by developing generic tools on the Convention intended to provide guidance on specific aspects related to its domestic implementation. The latter could include annotations and commentary to the Convention, which can render more explicit the content and implications of its provisions and in this manner also assist its application and interpretation by States. A fuller description of the content of the Kampala Convention could also draw on the link between the Guiding Principles and the Convention, as well as its integration and references to international humanitarian, criminal and human rights law. 2. Natural disasters and climate change 60. This mandate has been specifically tasked with addressing situations of internal displacement caused by natural disasters. It is an issue which the mandate has already done significant work on, most notably, in the form of the revised Operational Guidelines on the Protection of Persons in Situations of Natural Disasters, which have recently been adopted by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (A/HRC/16/43/Add.5) and a thematic report on the protection of internally displaced persons in situations of natural disasters submitted to the Human Rights Council in 2009 (A/HRC/10/13/Add.1). At least 36 million people were displaced by sudden-onset natural disasters in 2008, including over 20 million displaced by climate-related, sudden-onset disasters, according to a report by OCHA and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. This does not include slow-onset disasters such as drought and sea-level rise, which will also trigger important displacements. By contrast, 4.6 million people were newly internally displaced during that year by conflict and violence.8 As a further aspect of its work on internal displacement, this mandate will seek to address more specifically the human rights implications and dimensions of climate-induced internal displacement. 61. Although much attention has been devoted to the scientific evidence of climate change and the preventive and mitigation measures necessary to stop or manage this phenomena, relatively little attention has been paid to date on the human rights implications of climate change and even less to finding durable solutions to climate-induced forced 6 7 8 14 Countries which have either already or are the course of developing national laws and policies based on the Guiding Principles include, inter alia: Angola, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya. IDMC: http://www.internal-displacement.org/kampala-convention/making-it-real. Adopted by the Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes. According to the findings of a study by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Monitoring disaster displacement in the context of climate change (September 2009).Available at: http://www.internaldisplacement.org/8025708F004CFA06/(httpPublications)/451D224B41C04246C12576390031FF63? OpenDocument.