Indonesian Consul for Immigration, Majid Agus, presents an amended birth certificate to an applicant who filed for administrative correction his
birth documents ©UNHCR/M.Palma
On 17-18 April, UNHCR conducted a Stakeholders Forum
for Local Civil Registrars (LCRs) in South Cotabato,
Sarangani and Davao Occidental in the Philippines.
The forum created a platform for LCRs to develop ways
of facilitating late birth registration and administrative
correction of birth certificates for persons of Indonesian
descent. On 24 April, a Strategic Planning Meeting on the
National Action Plan to End Statelessness (NAP) was
held in Manila. Participants included Government agency
representatives who developed and agreed on concrete
and strategic approaches towards achieving the goals in
the NAP, including accession to the 1961 Convention on
the Reduction of Statelessness and elaborating a process
for registration that would confirm citizenship of the Sama
Bajau population.
On 24-27 April, the newly nominated Government
Focal Points on Statelessness from 11 Member States
of the International Conference on the Great Lakes
Region (ICGLR) convened in Naivasha, Kenya for the first
regional strategic workshop to advance the Brazzaville
Declaration and Action Plan adopted in October
2017. The Focal Points endorsed a Roadmap, in which
each Government committed in principle to forming a
statelessness task-force by June 2018, preparing a draft
National Action Plan by August 2018, and initiating the
process of accession to the Statelessness Conventions
by no later than August 2019.
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