On 10 and 11 September, UNHCR and the Government of Mali convened the Regional Dialogue on Protection and Solutions in relation to Forced Displacement in the Sahel, in Bamako, Mali. Co-chaired by the Malian Minister of Solidarity and UNHCR Director for West and Central Africa, the meeting was attended by officials and NGO representatives from Burkina-Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger. The UN Secretary-General’s Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, attended as a special guest. Participants agreed to strengthen access to civil registration services in war-affected areas in the Sahel region, including by building the capacity of relevant actors and using information technologies to enhance access. academics, government officials and representatives of UN agencies, to discuss challenges related to statelessness in Chad and avenues to address them. On 9 September, UNHCR held roundtable discussions with the faculties of law from the Great Zimbabwe University, Midlands State University, University of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Ezekiel Guti University in an effort to strengthen partnership with academia. The meeting resulted in an agreement to expand areas of collaboration with respect to research on statelessness, and to organize an annual National Moot Court Competition as well as a Conference on statelessness, which will first be held in November this year. On 2 July, several recognized experts on statelessness adopted the “Expert Statement on the Prevention and Eradication of Statelessness in the Americas” on the margins of the World Conference on Statelessness organized by the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. The declaration highlights the risk of statelessness as a result of large-scale displacement in the region, mainly from Venezuela. The declaration also includes a series of recommendations to address the situation. On 10 September, UNHCR and the UNESCO Chair in Human Rights and Democracy at the AbomeCalavi University in Benin signed a Memorandum of Understanding paving the way for collaboration on statelessness. The University and UNHCR will work towards introducing a course on statelessness into the formal curriculum. In July, UNHCR and the Chadian National School of Administration organized its first conference on statelessness in N’Djamena. The conference brought together over 150 participants, including Participants at the Regional Workshop on Registration, Statelessness and Refugee Status Determination in Santiago, Chile. © UNHCR 6