Delivered by: Ms Veronica Nordlund, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of Sweden to the UN in Geneva
Madam Chair,
We wish to thank UNHCR for the note on international protection. We commend UNHCR and its partners for the immense work undertaken over the past year, acknowledging the severe impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on UNHCR persons of concern and operations worldwide. This remains a challenging time and the pandemic will continue to affect our lives, our work and those most in need of protection for the foreseeable future.
Sweden’s support is steadfast to the principle of international protection and to ending statelessness, to responding to increasing numbers of internally displaced persons, addressing protection challenges such as sexual and gender based violence, upholding effective asylum systems and supporting durable solutions. Protection and solutions for displaced and stateless persons must stay high on the international agenda, even as we continue to battle COVID-19.
Sweden stands firmly behind the Global Compact on Refugees and we look forward to jointly evaluating progress towards its objectives at this year’s High Level Officials Meeting. We remain committed to implementing the pledges we made at the Global Refugee Forum, including supporting efforts to strengthen asylum systems.
We see resettlement as a sustainable, safe and organized way to offer international protection to refugees in the most vulnerable situations. Resettlement is also an act of solidarity with host countries. Despite the difficulties in 2020 Sweden managed to resume resettlement during the autumn and successfully transferred about 3600 refugees to Sweden last year. That was 39 per cent of those resettled to the European Union, and 15,8 per cent of the global resettlement transfers in 2020. This year we plan to receive 6400 quota refugees in Sweden in close cooperation with UNHCR and IOM. We remain committed to supporting an expanded and strategic resettlement response, which was also the focus of our recent co-chairmanship together with Ireland of the UNHCR Priority Situations Core Group. Sweden continues to support the implementation of the UNHCR Three-year strategy on Resettlement and complementary pathways.
In the EU, Sweden will continue to be a strong voice for greater solidarity and responsibility sharing and for fair and effective asylum policies. The ongoing discussions on the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum are critical. It is key for Sweden that there will be an effective solidarity mechanism in place and a more even distribution of asylum seekers within the Union.
Moreover, Sweden is stepping up efforts to ensure that protection is firmly placed at the core of all humanitarian action, while recognising the centrality of protection also to the humanitarian, development and peace nexus. Achieving protection as an outcome, in other words reducing the risks that people affected by humanitarian crises experience in the first place, is now a key objective in Sweden’s five-year strategy for humanitarian aid through Sida. We welcome the review of the implementation of the IASC Protection Policy initiated in May, and its aim to provide recommendations on the strengthening of protection outcomes. UNHCR and the Global Protection Cluster have a key role to play in this important process.
Sweden strongly supports the #Ibelong campaign to end statelessness. To prevent and resolve statelessness is a hallmark of Swedish nationality policy and since the beginning of the #IBelong campaign, more than 26 000 stateless persons have been granted Swedish nationality. We commend the progress being made in the global fight against statelessness and in particular the accessions to the Conventions.
Due to the far-reaching consequences the pandemic has and will continue to have for displaced and stateless persons worldwide it is more necessary than ever that States stay committed and show solidarity, and that we collaborate to ensure that persons in need of international protection receive the protection and solutions they are entitled to.
Thank you.