of refugees and the resolution of refugee problems...guided by the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol." The UNHCR has traditionally argued that it does not have an exclusive mandate for IDPs even though at least since 1972 it had relief and rehabillatation programs for those displaced within a country. Until the mid-2000s, it conditioned involvement to cases where there is a specific request by the UN Secretary General and with the consent of the State concerned it has been willing to respond by assisting IDPs in a given instance. In 2005 it was helping some 5.6 million IDPs ( out of over 25 million), but only about 1.1 million in Africa.