A/HRC/41/40 20204 was launched by the Special Rapporteur and partners, with the objective to galvanize and reinforce multi-stakeholder engagement towards reducing and resolving internal displacement. The Plan of Action explicitly recognizes the role of NHRIs as key stakeholders with the mandates and potential to advance national action on internal displacement issues. Nevertheless, NHRIs acknowledged that their role could be enhanced to increase their effectiveness for IDPs. 19. Internal displacement can affect any country, even those with little or no previous experience of it. Consequently, preparedness for internal displacement is key for all Governments and NHRIs, to allow them to take effective action to prevent the conditions leading to displacement or to respond rapidly to displacement in accordance with international standards. NHRIs have a vital role in national efforts to assist national authorities to meet their human rights commitments, to monitor progress and to hold them to account. 20. National human rights institutions have special responsibilities to support specific vulnerable groups and to empower them to claim their rights, including those made vulnerable because of internal displacement. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development establishes that States and development partners should leave no one behind in efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals for all, and explicitly mentions IDPs among the groups that are among the most vulnerable, the poorest and the least able to claim their rights. NHRIs are among the national partners that can help to promote sustainable development alongside dedicated development actors working collectively for and with them to achieve the goals. 21. The Special Rapporteur conducted a consultative process to examine how NHRIs and their regional networks5 currently work with and on behalf of IDPs to identify positive practices and seek their views on how to enhance their work to ensure that the Guiding Principles and other relevant national, regional and international standards are implemented in practice. In December 2017, in collaboration with GANHRI, she sent a questionnaire to all NHRIs to map their ongoing work on internal displacement. She thanks those that responded. 22. In February 2018, preceding the GANHRI annual meeting, the Special Rapporteur organized a one-day consultative workshop in collaboration with UNHCR and OHCHR. The workshop attracted 36 participants representing 22 individual NHRIs 6 and networks.7 They explored the institutions’ modalities of engagement in policy and operational responses to displacement; exchanged experiences and strategies; discussed challenges; identified key lessons and emerging good practices; and provided recommendations to strengthen their role in preventing and responding to internal displacement. 8 During the annual meeting of GANHRI, the Special Rapporteur organized a public side event, cosponsored by the Governments of Austria, Honduras and Uganda, to examine national institutions’ use of the Guiding Principles and to propose ideas to expand the scope of these efforts. 23. The Special Rapporteur spoke at the biannual meeting of the Asia Pacific Forum, held in Bangkok in November 2017. She participated in a public hearing on internal displacement and human rights in the Americas organized by the Inter-American 4 5 6 7 8 6 Available at http://www.globalprotectioncluster.org/2018/05/23/gp20-plan-of-action/. The Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions, the Network of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Americas and the Network of African National Human Rights Institutions. In Afghanistan, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Iraq, Kenya, Mexico, Niger, Nigeria, the Philippines, Peru, the Sudan, Uganda, Ukraine, Zambia and Zimbabwe and in Kosovo (all references to Kosovo in the present document should be understood to be in the context of Security Council resolution 1244 (1999)). Asia Pacific Forum, European Network of National Human Rights Institutions and GANHRI. See the workshop summary report, available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IDPersons/ SummaryReport_NHRI_DP%20Workshop20Feb2018.pdf.