 I would like to welcome this opportunity to say a few words on the relationship between internal displacement and the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights in the fight against poverty. My name is Olivier Deschuter, I am the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and I am particularly interested in this topic since I was the rapporteur on the Central African Republic when that country was reviewed by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2015. The Central African Republic is a country that since 2012 is going through a security crisis, an internal conflict leading some 700,000 people to be internally displaced in that country and some 500,000 having fled to neighbouring countries. So it is a country in which that question of which economic, social and cultural rights are enjoyed or should be enjoyed by the internally displaced is particularly important. I also note that in more and more world regions people are being displaced as a result of climate disasters, droughts, floods, landslides that in 2020 led some 30 million people to be displaced moving away from their homes and the regions in which they resided and that is a major challenge that we are facing today. So let me summarize perhaps in four basic principles what international human rights law has to say on this issue. Firstly, we must identify as calling for specific answers the question of internal displacement resulting from a situation of conflict. We know that even where government does not control all the national territory because of guerrilla movements occupying part of the territory and making it difficult for the government to exercise effective control, nevertheless, the government has a duty to do all it can reasonably do in order to protect the human rights of the population on the national territory. The government must deploy its best efforts to protect economic, social and cultural rights in particular. In addition, certain violations of such rights can be war crimes if they are committed in times of conflict. For example, the attacks against hospitals and schools, rape or sexual slavery, the use of children to participate in hostilities are all violations of economic, social and cultural rights that may be denounced as war crimes in times of conflict. So those are specific situations in which economic, social and cultural rights apply in times of conflict with those specific consequences that I've indicated. A second principle is that economic, social and cultural rights should be taken into account both to protect people who are displaced and to ensure that people can return to their place of origin. Return shall be facilitated if people have access to productive resources such as land and water, if they have access to housing, if they have access to education. And so obviously, the protection of economic, social and cultural rights is one way to avoid any displacement becoming permanent and to facilitate return in addition to adequate mechanisms of restitution. But economic, social and cultural rights are equally important for those who have been displaced and cannot immediately return to their homes. In that case, humanitarian aid should be provided without discrimination to ensure that everyone has access to water and sanitation, to food, to healthcare, to education, for example. Indeed, the guiding principles on internal displacement adopted in 1998 states that where the displacement cannot be avoided, it should be ensured to the greatest practicable extent, and I quote here from the guiding principles, that proper accommodation is provided to the displaced persons, that such displacements are affected in satisfactory conditions of safety, nutrition, health and hygiene. And this is what principle 7 paragraph 2 of the guiding principles on internal displacement enunciates in 1998. Principle 18 of the guiding principles add that internally displaced persons have the right to an adequate standard of living, including essential food and drinking water, basic shelter and housing, adequate clothing, adequate medicine and sanitation. So that is the second important principle. However, it is a principle that is not always easy to apply, particularly when people have migrated and are grouped in refugee camps. One of the challenges here is that in many cases children will not be registered at birth, despite the admonition to this effect contained in principle 20 of the guiding principles. And as a result, these children may be denied access to education or to healthcare. So it's really important that through awareness campaigns or by establishing mobile units for the issuance of certificates, we ensure that all children born from displaced parents or born in refugee camps be adequately registered at birth. Now, the third principle is that no discrimination should be allowed to be inflicted on individuals based on their place of residency, based on their nationality, based on their administrative status, based on the fact that they have been displaced. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has adopted in 2016 a declaration on the rights of migrants and refugees, emphasizing that migrants and refugees had a