mandate to protect refugees. It was given to us because statelessness is preventable, and we’ve put forward the Campaign and the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness (GAP) to try to accelerate prevention and reduction efforts. Prevention is really key as it is much easier to prevent statelessness than trying to address it once it has occurred. Since the launch of the Campaign, we have seen impressive steps taken by States like Albania, Armenia, Cuba, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg and Tajikistan to ensure that no child born on their territory is left stateless. Removal of gender discrimination from nationality laws, which is of course also critical to preventing statelessness, is an area which has also seen some positive developments but where a lot more could be done. Iran, for example, recently passed laws that make it easier for a mother to pass on her nationality to her child, and this is a very welcome development. We would like to see all 25 countries which retain legislative provisions that discriminate against women in their ability to confer nationality to their children address these by the end of the #IBelong Campaign. Another important area of work to prevent statelessness is universal birth registration, something that virtually all countries and everyone can agree on. Birth registration records where a child was born and who their parents are – elements which are vital to establishing an entitlement to nationality. UNHCR is supporting many countries to improve their systems so that those who would be left at risk of statelessness as a result of not having important legal identity document such as a birth certificate, are able to access one. This work also ties into the Sustainable Development Goals, which call on States to ensure legal identity, including birth registration, and the overarching ambition of leaving no one behind. I hope we will continue to see important achievements in this regard as States implement recent pledges and commitments. been affected. People in every country and every social class have been affected. However, people who were on the move, people fleeing violence, people who are refugees or asylum seekers and stateless people have been left particularly vulnerable. In many countries, healthcare and access to vaccines is restricted to nationals, and those with proof of their identity. You can easily imagine what it is like for somebody who does not have documentation and who is stateless being denied access to a vaccine. The lack of proof of identity is a very serious problem globally. The World Bank has estimated that over a billion people don’t have documentation to prove who they are. Of course, not all of those people are stateless, but some are. The important point here is that stateless people risk being excluded from national immunization plans regardless of whether their age, health status or role in society would otherwise place them in a priority group. To draw attention to this, UNHCR has just issued a paper on the impact of COVID-19 on stateless populations, which has examples of good practices and policy recommendations that we hope will make a difference. And of course preventing statelessness by implementing the provisions of the 1961 Convention offers a critical and lasting way to remove the risk of statelessness and precarity that comes with being without a nationality in the context of a global emergency like a pandemic. How will UNHCR accelerate efforts to resolve statelessness and boost accessions to the 1961 Convention in the remaining years of the #IBelong Campaign The remaining three years of the #IBelong Campaign give UNHCR, together with the international community, a defined period in which to really rally our collective efforts to address statelessness. Within UNHCR, we are doing our best to bolster our advocacy, to increase budget allocations, and to appoint dedicated staff to statelessness. We know from our experience in places as diverse as Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand and Malaysia, these are the ingredients that lead to the greatest possibility of success as they set the scene for effectively persuading a government to take the steps necessary to reform its laws, implement the new legislation, and ensure that communities can The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing vulnerabilities of stateless persons. Could you say something about the importance of the 1961 Convention and statelessness prevention generally in this context? One thing that COVID has demonstrated is that a pandemic does not respect your legal status – nationals and those without any nationality have all 4