The African Union's theme for 2019

The African Union (AU) is organizing a series of events in 2019 to promote its theme of resolving forced displacement and to commemorate the anniversaries of two landmark and influential treaties on displacement in Africa.

The events are being supported by UNHCR, the Refugee Agency, and other partners. They will put a spotlight on forced displacement and focus attention on the AU’s “Year of Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons: Towards Durable Solutions to Forced Displacement in Africa.”

This theme was launched at the AU Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2019.

A rich programme will also commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the 1969 OAU (Organization of African Unity) Refugee Convention and the 10^th anniversary of the 2009 African Union Convention on Internally Displaced Persons, also known as the Kampala Convention. Member states are being urged to take the opportunity to ratify and implement the conventions, if they have not yet done so.

The activities will seek to engage a wide and diverse global audience, bring increased visibility to the issue and focus attention on finding durable solutions for the forcibly displaced as well as the stateless. A series of six continental consultative meetings in different countries will address thematic issues, including ratification and implementation of the two conventions, mixed movements of refugees and migrants, statelessness, global responsibility sharing and the role of parliamentarians in preventing and resolving forced displacement.

There will also be partner-led activities, including training and capacity building. Activities will engage other key partners, including the Pan-African Parliament, donor states, refugees, IDPs, stateless people, intergovernmental partners (including UN agencies), academics, the private sector, faith-based organizations, students and NGOs. The continental process will culminate in November with an AU Humanitarian Summit. Delegates are expected to adopt an outcome document, including a plan of action, drawing on earlier discussions.

To promote and raise high-level support for the theme of 2019, the AU has appointed Equatorial Guinea’s President Theodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo as the theme’s Champion.