REFUGEES FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION UNHCR, APRIL 2023 States made pledges important for the eradication of statelessness at both the High-Level Segment on Statelessness held at UNHCR’s October 2019 Executive Committee Meeting in Geneva,33 and at the Global Refugee Forum held in December 2019. 34 A number of Member States had already made similar pledges in 2011.35 The countries considered for this report all made relevant pledges in both 2011 and 2019: • • • DRC pledged to support integration of refugees, including by facilitating access to long-term residency status (by removing the requirement to produce a passport from the country of origin), by improving civil registration and issue of identity documents, and by identifying cases of statelessness. Rwanda pledged to bring its nationality laws and procedures into line with the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness; to ensure access to birth registration and identity cards for refugees; to facilitate naturalisation of stateless persons; to adopt a national action plan on statelessness, and to ensure issue of Rwandan nationality documents to those with entitlement. Uganda pledged to enhance continued refugee protection in Uganda, and to take action to eradicate statelessness, including adoption of a legal provision at national level to grant nationality to children born on the territory who would otherwise be stateless. 36 A more detailed list of pledges is found under each country heading in Annex 4. ICGLR commitments on nationality and statelessness • Dar-es-Salaam Declaration on Peace, Security, Democracy and Development in the Great Lakes Region, ICGLR, adopted by the First Summit of Heads of State and Government, Dar-es-Salaam, 19-20 November 2004 • Brazzaville Declaration on the eradication of statelessness in the Great Lakes Region, 2017 • Consolidated Action Plan of the ICGLR on the eradication of statelessness in the Great Lakes Region (2017-2024) • Outcome Document from the High-Level meeting of the Ministers in charge of refugees in the Great Lakes adopted by ICGLR Member States on 7 March 2019 at Munyonyo, Uganda • Outcome Document of the ICGLR Ministerial Conference on the eradication of statelessness in the Great Lakes, April 2019, Nairobi • Pledges by ICGLR and Member States at the UNHCR High Level Segment on Statelessness, Geneva, October 2019 33 ‘Results of the High-Level Segment on Statelessness’, High-Level Segment on Statelessness, Geneva, October 2019 https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/results-of-the-high-level-segment-on-statelessness/. 34 Global Refugee Forum, December 2019, https://globalcompactrefugees.org/article/global-refugee-forum; pledges are summarised in an Excel spreadsheet available at https://globalcompactrefugees.org/channel/pledges contributions. 35 ‘PLEDGES 2011: Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and Stateless Persons’, UNHCR ministerial meeting to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (Geneva, Palais des Nations, 7-8 December 2011) available with other resources at https://www.unhcr.org/ministerial-meeting.html 36 The Ugandan government has also pledged to ensure that unrecognised communities in Uganda are recognised as citizens. This applies, however, only to communities that are considered to have be en present in the country before 1926 (the date established by the constitution). 10