statelessness populations. “If you look at the High-Level Segment and the pledges there, we actually have momentum on a platter that we’ve never had before. And new things will continue to happen over the next few years thanks to that and all of the lead-up work at the regional level that went into that.” A finding highlighted in Box 25 by one informant was the concern that too much attention might be focused on ticking boxes and following up on HLS commitments, thus diverting focus from stateless people. The HLS also generated new pledges from the U.S., reaffirming diplomatic support to eradicate statelessness and gender discrimination in nationality laws abroad and to conduct a review of its statelessness activities. Box 25: Attention Diverted to HLS “It's great that states pledge [at the HLS] to do certain things [on statelessness]. But it's unfortunate if then all of UNHCR's energy and attention is focused on following up on those pledges. If that's where [UNHCR’s] attention goes, when the actual problems are happening to real people on the ground, in terms of their real lives, there won’t be the bandwidth.” Perspectives on the Friends of the #IBelong Campaign. PRM staff who were actively involved in the Group of Friends felt that it achieved concrete outcomes, especially between 2015-2017, when the U.S. was most involved. Box 26: Effective action as a group “We are part of 14 or 15 informal groups in the humanitarian field alone and from our perspective this group is the most successful. This is because the UNHCR Statelessness Section is behind the group, the group is behind the issue, and we have a very clear strategy. This is what makes this group successful.” Interviews with members of the Group of Friends revealed that they felt they had achieved a lot as a group and attributed their successes to having a clear strategy, including engaging the HRC, sponsoring resolutions, releasing common statements into plenary at different governance boards and policy forums, and engaging with the UPR process of different countries. The Core Group of the Group of Friends engaged the Executive Committee meeting in 2017 with a joint statement and with the 2016 HRC Resolution (in which case, feedback from interviewees was that it would not have been passed without their engagement). As highlighted in Box 26, Core Group members all expressed satisfaction with the progress they had made in the group and the support they had received from the UNHCR Statelessness Section. Thailand is a member of the Group of Friends, and while the evaluation found that the Group of Friends has helped to engage the Thai government at the national level, particularly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it has been difficult to translate these engagements into change at the local level in Thailand. PRM could do more to push the Group of Friends members to make concrete improvements within their countries on statelessness, including UNHCR donor countries, many of which host stateless populations. Doing so will necessitate finding a way to bridge the gap between government ministries and agencies involved in foreign diplomacy and those responsible for changes to nationality laws and policies back home. There was concern that the U.S. stepping back in 2019 would weaken the Core Group. In the end, there were mixed consequences: on the one hand, it was positive because it gave other countries like Kenya and Brazil, more room to take more of a lead role; however, it also placed a greater burden on the UNHCR Statelessness Section to lead the group. 5.1.8 Perspectives on Human Rights Treaty Bodies Perspectives on effectiveness of UN mechanisms. The sentiment analysis from interviews found that 81 percent of global respondents felt the UN mechanisms were useful advocacy- and awareness-raising tools but were more limited in translating into country-level changes. Respondents in Thailand and the Dominican Republic mirrored this trend. In Nepal, seven of eleven respondents felt they were useful, three felt it was effective at making change at the country-level and only one felt UN mechanisms were not effective at all. Box 27: The UPR is important for Nepal “I think the UPR is very effective lobbying document. It is also important right now because Nepal is a member of the Human Rights Council which means that the government will be more inclined to respect the human rights process. It also enables us as civil society network to engage people who are directly affected and give them a voice through our joint submission. The government is compelled to respond to them.” 19