By Frank Nyakairu and Katie Nguyen

KAMPALA (AlertNet) - The African Union (AU) is expected to adopt a ground-breaking convention this week to protect and assist millions of internally displaced people on the continent.

Africa hosts almost half of the world's internally displaced people (IDPs) - 11.8 million of an estimated 26 million - who have been uprooted within their own countries because of conflict and natural disasters.

The convention, the first treaty of its kind, would oblige AU states to prevent displacement, produce long-lasting solutions to the causes of displacement and provide IDPs with basic human rights, according to a draft obtained by AlertNet.

"With this convention we in Africa are at the threshold of history," Sierra Leone's foreign minister, Zainab Bangura, said on Tuesday.

"Because Africa has the largest concentration of this vulnerable group of people in the world, it makes it mandatory that we in Africa have taken the leadership and ownership of addressing this problem."

Bangura, herself a former refugee, was speaking ahead of a meeting of African heads of states on Thursday and Friday, which was widely expected to endorse the convention - the first legally binding agreement on internal displacement with a continental scope.

The AU has been hailed for driving through this initiative although some officials involved in talks in Kampala on the treaty question whether parts of it will be workable and enforceable.

The AU, which has 53 member states, hopes the pact will help tackle what it sees as a major impediment to development and meeting U.N. goals to reduce poverty on the world's poorest continent, as well as a source of instability.

"The potential of otherwise willing and able people to contribute to the development of their communities and nations is being wasted," said Ugandan Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi.

"Keeping such a large number of people in confinement also has serious consequences for peace and stability."

CHALLENGES

Fifteen countries in the AU must ratify the convention for it to come into effect.

Unlike refugees who have fled across a border or to another country, IDPs benefit from little or no protection.

But under the proposed convention, AU member states would be obliged to provide IDPs with assistance ranging from food and water to healthcare and education. If they are unable to do so, the convention says states will cooperate in seeking help from aid agencies and civil society.

Sudan has the highest displaced population in Africa with 4.9 million IDPs. Another 1.3 million people are uprooted in Somalia, while two million have fled their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Critics, however, question whether governments will live up to central aspects of the pact such as preventing displacement when so many of them are fighting insurgencies that trigger displacement from Sudan and Somalia to the Great Lakes region.

The pact also sets out obligations of armed groups to protect IDPs, who have long fallen prey to militias and rebels operating inside and outside camps. But again, some officials involved in the treaty's creation question the likelihood of armed groups adhering to a convention that has been hammered out by the AU.

They say if states and rebel groups breach the pact there is no judicial redress.

Not only does the convention address displacement caused by conflict but also climate change and as the result of development projects - seen as a first by some experts.

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