UNHCR to hold conference on statelessness in West Africa

A three-day Ministerial Conference on Statelessness in West Africa is expected to open on February 23 in the Ivorian capital of Abidjan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a release here on Wednesday.

The conference, the first of its kind in Africa, will be attended by Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice and the Interior from the West Africa sub-region and high-level representatives from key regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, the African Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Mano River Union, the release said.

They will discuss the issue of statelessness with the aim of promoting a comprehensive regional strategy to identify stateless people, designing protection measures, and developing concrete solutions to prevent and reduce statelessness throughout the region.

According to the release, the conference will be hosted by the Government of Cte d'Ivoire and the UNHCR, jointly with the ECOWAS.

The Ministerial Conference will be preceded by two days of high- level technical debates among experts in the field of nationality and statelessness who will come up with concrete recommendations to prevent, reduce and resolve statelessness in West Africa. It will be inaugurated by the Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara while UNHCR High Commissioner Antonio Guterres will also be present. Of the 10 million people who are stateless or at risk of statelessness in the world, at least 750,000 live in West Africa. Stateless people are denied a nationality and are deprived of their basic human rights. Endi