118 Pledges 2011 - Ministerial Intergovernmental Event on Refugees and Stateless Persons We renew our commitment to the humanitarian principles of receiving and protecting asylum-seekers and seek at the same time to form suitable, active partnerships for burden sharing in a just manner. We support on this occasion the idea of setting up a comprehensive regional framework backed up by international support to benefit from our past experiences in the early 1980s when the international conference for Africa refugee assistance was convened (ICARA I and II). SWEDEN PLEDGE FORM The Government of Sweden pledges to: • Review the reservations that Sweden has to both the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons with the intention of withdrawing the reservations that are possible. The formal process for this is currently under way. • Intensify its efforts for the avoidance of statelessness at both the national and the international level. • Continue to combat all forms of racism, discrimination and related intolerance. • Continue to improve the national asylum process in order to uphold a humane, legally secure and effective system. • Continue to keep the duration of detention as short as possible; and to a minimum when it comes to detention of children. • Continue to ensure that the return of all who have been refused asylum in Sweden to their country of origin is made in a humane and dignified manner. • Continue to work within the European Union for a Common European Asylum Policy that is humane, legally secure and effective in order to ensure that access to asylum procedures is guaranteed and that the assessment is conducted in an equal manner regardless of which European Union Member State is responsible for the asylum application. • Continue to provide resettlement to Sweden in close cooperation with UNHCR in order to solve protracted refugee situations. Sweden will continue to seek ways to improve cooperation between resettlement countries and countries of destination with large refugee situations e.g. through the Contact Group for Resettlement of Afghan Refugees in Iran.