INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Pursuant to United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/C.3/65/L.58, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) facilitated a meeting of United Nations Member States to mark 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. The Intergovernmental event at ministerial level of United Nations Member States was held in Geneva on 7 and 8 December 2011 (Ministerial Intergovernmental Event). Conceived as the culmination of a year-long process to mark these anniversaries, the Ministerial Intergovernmental Event was attended by representatives of over 150 United Nations Member States. Special guests included the President of the Swiss Confederation, Her Excellency Ms. Micheline CalmyRey; Nobel peace laureate and former President of Finland, His Excellency Mr. Martti Ahtisaari; the Secretary of State of the United States of America, the Honourable Hillary Rodham Clinton; and Kenya's Minister of State for Immigration and Registration, the Honourable Gerald Otieno Kajwang'. Chapter IV contains the key statements delivered during the event, a message from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as the opening and closing remarks of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. António Guterres. The Ministerial Intergovernmental Event included both plenary and roundtable sessions. Two roundtable sessions provided an opportunity for participants to share their views on key issues. The roundtables addressed the following themes: a) “Protection challenges and opportunities: Where will we be in ten years?” and b) “International cooperation, solidarity and burden sharing, including in protracted refugee situations”. 9