CONFERENCE “70 YEARS OF THE CONVENTION ON THE STATUS OF STATELESS PERSONS AND 10 YEARS OF THE ‘I BELONG’ CAMPAIGN – WHAT HAVE WE ACHIEVED, AND WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?”

Today, Marina Dražić, Director, and Aleksandar Marković, Assistant Director of the National Academy for Public Administration (NAPA), attended the conference titled “70 Years of the Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and 10 Years of the ‘I Belong’ Campaign – What Have We Achieved, and What Does the Future Hold?”, held in the National Assembly of Serbia.

During this campaign, Ms Dražić and Mr Marković were actively involved as the leader and deputy leader of the Operational Group that worked on ensuring the right to register in the civil registry and access personal documents, with the aim of eradicating statelessness. This Operational Group successfully completed its mission in early November this year.

At the opening of the conference, attendees heard speeches given by Jelena Žarić Kovačević, Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government; Ruvendrin Menikdivela, Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees at UNHCR; and Soufiane Adjali, Head of the UNHCR Representation in Serbia.

The theme of the conference was the activities conducted by the Republic of Serbia in the field of preventing and combating statelessness. The conference also discussed the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, as well as the results achieved by Serbia as a signatory to these conventions.