An important outcome of the seminar was the development of Guidelines on Internally Displaced Persons in the Context of Natural Disasters: a Common Methodology for National Human Rights Institutions. The Guidelines, which are based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, were approved by APF members following the Tenth Annual Meeting in Mongolia in August 2005. The Guidelines are available at www.asiapacificforum.net/training/idp/brookings-bern/guidelines.doc. 2.3. APF Regional Workshop on National Human Rights Institutions and Internally Displaced Persons The HRCSL hosted the Regional Workshop on National Human Rights Institutions and Internally Displaced Persons in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 26-28 October 2005 and was represented by its Chairperson, Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy, fellow Commissioners and staff. The workshop was jointly organised by the APF/Brookings-Bern Project and the HRCSL. Commissioners and senior staff representatives from the NHRIs of Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka attended the workshop. The workshop also included participants from civil society organisations from India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and international and regional non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and research institutions from Thailand, Norway and the United States. The Government of Sri Lanka also participated in the workshop. Also participating were representatives from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN Country Team (Sri Lanka). Ms Roberta Cohen, CoDirector of the Brookings-Bern Project and Ms Pip Dargan, Deputy Director of the APF participated on behalf of their organisations. The workshop also included a one-day field visit to the southern Sri Lankan city of Galle to meet with people displaced by the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. Specific recommendations from the workshop included urging national human rights institutions to encourage the development of national laws and policies based on the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and to implement and disseminate the Principles and apply or expand them as appropriate to situations of conflict, development or massive human rights violations. Governments were similarly urged to recognise the Guiding Principles as an important international framework for the protection of IDPs and to disseminate and promote the Principles and use them as a basis for the development of laws, policies and programmes on internal displacement. 6