A/70/334 recommendations from his report to the General Assembly on achieving durable solutions to displacement in urban settings, as well as from his mission to Haiti. 16. He addressed the Security Council in October 2014, in a debate entitled “Women, peace and security: displaced women and girls: leaders and survivors”. He stressed that internally displaced women face double discrimination as internally displaced persons and as women, and unique human rights challenges owing to the intersection of gender with other factors such as age , group affiliation, disability and their civil or socioeconomic situations. Responses to internal displacement still do not adequately address the specific concerns of women and girls. 17. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the fact that all regional consul tations ahead of the World Humanitarian Summit to be held in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 2016 have concluded that the development and/or implementation of regional conventions on protection of and assistance to internally displaced persons was a necessity. He attended two regional consultations in 2015, the Middle East and North Africa regional consultation in March and the Latin America and the Caribbean regional consultation in May. He stressed the necessity of adopting regional instruments and national laws and policies on internal displacement and urged more effective partnerships to respond to emergency needs in urban areas. He plans to work with relevant actors in regions such as Latin America and Asia and the Pacific to promote such instruments. III. Governance structures for internal displacement A. Introduction 18. For the third consecutive year, a record number of persons were displaced within their own country. As of December 2014, 38 million persons were internally displaced worldwide by armed conflict, human rights violations and generalized violence; 1 an additional 19.3 million were internally displaced by disasters. 2 Protracted displacement situations have become the new normal; according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the experience of conflict-induced displacement lasts an average of 17 years. 3 These shocking statistics signal both our collective failure to protect civilians from forced displacement and our inability to respond in the longer term to the plight of internally displaced persons and their right to be provided with durable solutions. 19. As stated in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, national authorities bear the primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons within their jurisdiction (principle 3). This underscores that authorities at all levels — national and local — must show leadership in dealing with internal displacement issues, notably by being proactive and having adequate governance structures in place to better prevent, mitigate and respond to internal displacement crises. However, in many instances, __________________ 1 2 3 15-12504 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and Norwegian Refugee Council, Global Overview 2015: People Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (Geneva, 2015). Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and Norwegian Refugee Council, Global Estimates 2015: People Displaced by Disasters (Geneva, 2015). See www.internal-displacement.org/blog/2014/a-record-33-3-million-now-displaced-by-conflictand-violence-worldwide-as-one-family-flees-inside-syria-every-60-seconds. 7/26