On 3 and 4 December, in Madagascar, Focus
Development Association and UNHCR held a
training workshop on the right to nationality for
20 parliamentarians from the National Assembly
in Ampefy.
From 30 November to 4 December, the second
edition of the Statelessness and Nationality Course
for French speaking statelessness practitioners
was organized jointly by the Catholic University for
Central Africa and UNHCR in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
A total of 60 trainees from 30 countries participated
in the virtual course, which was taught principally
by trainers from across Africa. Trainers from the
Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness of the
University of Melbourne and from Tilburg University
complemented the course with a global perspective.
In November and December, the Interinstitutional
Technical Committee on statelessness in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo and UNHCR
organized a series of events in Bakavu, Bunia and
Goma to engage local authorities in addressing
statelessness. The events resulted in a provincial
roadmap on the eradication of statelessness by 2024
in the provinces of South Kivu, Ituri and North Kivu.
On 14 and 15 December, a stocktaking event as
follow-up to the 2019 High-Level Segment on
Statelessness and Global Refugee Forum focused on
the West and Central Africa region was convened
by the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS), the Economic and Monetary
Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) and UNHCR.
Despite constraints posed by the pandemic, good
progress on the implementation of statelessness
pledges has been made in the region, including
the establishment of a Statelessness Determination
Procedure in Côte d’Ivoire, the adoption of a
progressive civil registration framework in Chad,
and the publication of a study in Mali, among other
achievements.
On 11 and 12 November, the Kingdom of Eswatini
and UNHCR convened a briefing with Members
of Parliament to encourage Parliament to take
action in line with the pledge submitted by the
Kingdom of Eswatini at the 2019 High-Level
Segment on Statelessness to remove gender
discriminatory provisions in the nationality law.
To support advocacy efforts, UNHCR convened a
training session the following day with media and
governmental communications staff.
On 9 December, UNHCR and UNICEF, under the
banner of the Coalition on Every Child’s Right to a
Nationality, convened a series of trainings on “Birth
Registration and Prevention of Statelessness” for
State Registration Service and local authorities
in the Kyrgyz Republic. The trainings aimed to
raise awareness of international legal standards
in the field of birth registration and to support the
implementation of the pledges made by Kyrgyz
Republic at the 2019 High-Level Segment on
Statelessness.
On 25 November, the Government of Nigeria
adopted a National Action Plan against
Statelessness during a Federal Executive Council
meeting.
On 5 and 10 October, the Directorate for Aid and
Assistance to Refugees and Stateless Persons of
Côte d’Ivoire and UNHCR organized a workshop
in Yamoussoukro to train all 81 staff of the National
Council for Human Rights on statelessness and civil
registry issues. On the margins of the workshop,
UNHCR and the National Council for Human
Rights adopted a 2021-2023 Memorandum of
Understanding to collaborate on the implementation
of the National Action Plan to End Statelessness and
the regional Banjul Action Plan to End Statelessness.
On 25 November, the Supreme Court of Appeal of
South Africa, in The Minister of Home Affairs and
Others v Jose and Another, upheld the decision of
the High Court granting citizenship to two brothers
of Angolan origin. The order provided clarity on
the interpretation of a provision concerning the
acquisition of citizenship by naturalization for
applicants born in South Africa. Applicants who
meet the four listed requirements can now apply
for naturalization regardless of whether they were
born prior to or after the 2013 Citizenship Act
Amendment.
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