EC/64/SC/CRP.11 abroad, removal of requirements to renounce nationality before applying for naturalization, and inclusion of safeguards to prevent statelessness owing to voluntary renunciation of citizenship. 15. Consultations with governments in the lead-up to the Ministerial Intergovernmental Event provided an opportunity to discuss problematic elements of nationality laws and possible amendments to address them. Twelve governments made pledges on law reform to prevent and reduce statelessness. Only one of these pledges, made by the Russian Federation, had been implemented by May 2013. While law reform is often a slow process, UNHCR hopes that further progress will be made on implementation of these pledges. 16. UNHCR bolstered its capacity to identify gaps in legislation through the development of a global analytical database of nationality laws, additional country and regional studies and research on discrimination against women in nationality laws. When reviewing legislation, governments, staff and partners are benefiting from the publication of the following guidelines issued by UNHCR in 2012: Ensuring Every Child’s Right to Acquire a Nationality through Articles 1-4 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. (d) Preventing statelessness through birth registration, documentation and legal aid 17. The Office intensified efforts to prevent statelessness through support to civil registration and documentation procedures as well as the delivery of information and legal aid to affected populations. It undertook such activities in 35 countries, a significant jump from 27 during the previous two-year period. 18. For example, UNHCR worked with the NGO Lawyers for Human Rights in South Africa to deliver legal advice to individuals from across Southern Africa who were affected by conflicting laws and complex administrative requirements for confirmation of nationality. In the Americas, legal aid and civil registration programmes for persons of Haitian origin who are at risk of becoming stateless were established in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas and were complemented by efforts to reform nationality legislation and improve civil registration in Haiti. UNHCR collaborated with the Ombudsman and Government of Serbia to train judges, civil registration officials, social workers and police officers on the implementation of new procedures designed to facilitate the registration and issuance of identity documentation to Roma, as well as on procedures for confirmation of citizenship. (e) Reducing statelessness 19. There was slow but steady progress in reducing statelessness in a number of countries, though no breakthrough that led to a major reduction in the global population. The data available to UNHCR showed that more than 115,000 people acquired a nationality or had it confirmed in 2011 and approximately 94,600 in 2012. This was similar to the progress achieved during the previous reporting period. 20. The largest reduction in the number of stateless people took place in the Syrian Arab Republic, where nationality was offered in 2011 to one sector of the stateless Kurdish population (the “Ajanib”) who had been stateless since 1962. According to government figures, approximately 79,000 people were issued with citizenship documents, mainly during 2011. In Turkmenistan, citizenship was granted to more than 3,300 stateless people who had been identified through a Government registration exercise in 2007. With support from UNHCR, a second registration drive by the Government in 2011 collected data on an additional 8,300 individuals whose cases are now being processed. 21. The Office continued to advocate for solutions to a number of protracted statelessness situations. The anniversary of the 1961 Convention again allowed for significant consultations with governments on solutions. One encouraging development was the willingness of a small number of States to discuss their own successful efforts to 6