A/HRC/7/25 page 17 employees, including teachers, nurses, doctors and civil servants, which dragged on through most of 2007, testify to the precariousness of pay conditions, which, coupled with the lack of any credit or housing policy, deny almost 80 per cent of the population any hope of decent housing. That insecurity also explains the general climate of corruption and the poor functioning of public services. V. THE SITUATION OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS 59. According to a study on the humanitarian situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which was published in July 2007 by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, there are currently approximately 6 million internally displaced persons, mostly from vulnerable groups such as children, women, and older persons, throughout the country. In the region of Petit Nord alone (Goma, Masisi, Rutshuru, Lubero and Kalehe), between December 2006 and December 2007, a total of 437,796 internally displaced persons from 93,384 households were identified. Those figures were provided by the Commission on Population Movements in North Kivu, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Solidarités, Caritas and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 60. The situation is particularly alarming in the east of the country where clashes between FARDC and armed groups have led to massive new movements of populations living without resources and in complete insecurity (lacking medicine, health care, shelter, drinking water and food assistance). The number of internally displaced persons continues to grow because of the climate of insecurity in the provinces of North and South Kivu. VI. THE GOMA CONFERENCE 61. A conference on peace, security and development in the provinces of North and South Kivu, sponsored by President Joseph Kabila, was held in Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province from 6 to 24 January 2008. The overall objectives of the conference were to put an end to war and insecurity in the provinces of North and South Kivu and to lay the foundations for a lasting peace and the full development of North and South Kivu. More than 1,000 individuals participated in the conference, including representatives from all the communities in those provinces, representatives of armed groups, members of the national and provincial parliaments who come from the two provinces and representatives of civil society and the international community. 62. On 23 January 2008, following two weeks of discussions, all the armed groups operating in the two provinces signed a peace agreement in the presence of the Head of State. The agreement provides for: a full and immediate cessation of hostilities throughout North and South Kivu; disengagement of the soldiers of the armed groups; the creation of demilitarized zones for the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC); “brassage”*; integration; and the implementation of the national programme for disarmament, demobilization * Reintegration and retraining of ex-combatants into one new national army.