Africa: Go-ahead for IDP convention

African Union members have adopted plans to implement the Kampala convention on the protection of internally displaced people, including increasing their contributions to refugee and IDP funding and accelerating the convention’s ratification, signature and domestication, the AU said. Signed by 26 countries since it was endorsed in the Ugandan capital of Kampala on 23 October 2009, the convention obliges governments to recognize that IDPs have specific vulnerabilities and must be supported, according to Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.