Quality of the relationship. In all three countries, PRM and UNHCR relationships were strong. In Nepal, there is a RefCoord Assistant and coordination support from a PRM Staffer working remotely from the Philippines who engage monthly with UNHCR for updates on the work (see Box 36). In Thailand, the RefCoord and a RefCoord Assistant engage regularly with UNHCR. Feedback noted that eight of 10 respondents cited a good, semiformal relationship, with scheduled calls, meetings, and reporting. Box 36: Frequency of Engagement “I do engage with UNHCR very often and every month we have a monthly call with them. In the past we used to have a monthly in-person meeting but now it’s a pandemic and COVID, we have a monthly meeting. During that time, we try to update ourselves on what things are happening on our portfolio." U.S. engagement in multi-organizational fora in Thailand was considered particularly valuable as an advocacy tool (see Box 37). In the Dominican Republic, four out of five interviewees cited that the UNHCR-Embassy Human Rights Officer was an open-door relationship. This finding is unsurprising, given the close coordination on the work and the frequent contact. “I was in, I don’t know if it was daily, but it was close to it, contact with the UNHCR head on the ground there in Santo Domingo.” Box 37: U.S. Government Involvement “I think, first of all, the fact that the U.S. government is present -whether it's the monthly Thailand Statelessness Working Group or this quarterly regionwide [meeting] is important. It's a format that we've begun to use more because the U.S. was usually the only government at the table. These fora help send a message to both our UN and NGO partners that we take it seriously.” Feedback from the RefCoord FGDs stated that monitoring visits included UNHCR providing an overview of their current work on statelessness and what they were doing to alleviate or mitigate it—either by assisting stateless persons or increasing their own capacity or government capacity to do those things, like registration or advocacy. Discussions during monitoring visits are largely centered around the ways that UNHCR staff address their resource constraints with remedies focused on building capacity of UNHCR staff or government actors through training. PRM produces biennial strategy decision documents for each region, with annual updates reporting on progress against objectives in the strategies. Focusing on the three countries revealed a mixed level of depth in the information provided about statelessness issues. For instance, there was some information provided in the Nepal strategy, which referred to the Women’s Nationality Initiative, including references to diplomatic and multilateral engagement and building the capacity of local NGOs to advocate for change, but the strategy did not change significantly from one year to the next. Annual updates centered around developments on the issue of gender discrimination in the law. 5.1.12 Gaps in PRM’s Statelessness Strategy USG and PRM staffing, funding, and diplomacy. Table 4 recaps the level of operational funding and staffing for UNHCR as well as PRM’s prioritization and engagement of statelessness at the country level. As Table 4 shows, only in the Dominican Republic has UNHCR given support and attention to non-refugee statelessness that approaches meeting the needs, in keeping with its mandate. In both Thailand and Nepal, UNHCR has struggled to prioritize statelessness, despite the creation of Regional Statelessness Officer positions and the funding of a protection team in each country. 26